Your Eyes Say Yes and Your Mouth Says Gnocchi

I am a big fan of sauces. If you have seen me lately you would know I have become what some would say, pudgy. Noel and I bought some gnocchi a few weeks ago from Russo's. Today was finally the day it needed to be cooked. I was actually threatened with death if I did not make the potato dumplings. I decided quickly that I wanted to make my own sauce with the meal. It didn't take long before I knew I was going to make a vodka sauce. I have master many other sauces, how hard could it be? Right!? Let me tell you, it was real easy and it came out great. Real restaurant quality stuff here. As we were eating dinner, it was Noel trying to come up with the name of this blog post. I started off wanting to make the gnocchi the side dish, but as I started cooking I realized I had a lot of gnocchi, so the meatatarian in me made the steak the side dish. While at Shaws I bought a family size package of baby steaks. Eight tiny little steaks all about an ounce in size.

So vodka sauce is pretty easy to make and you don't need much. Allrecipes.com has a very easy basic one that I went off of. Like I said last post I like to take a recipe and Dan it up a little.

The Sauce
1/2 cup vodka (I used a potato vodka Vesica)
1/2 onion chopped
large clove garlic minced
1/4 cup butter
14 oz can diced tomato (I used fire roasted garlic)
basil
oreganoal
1/2 pint light cream
1/2 cup parmesan cheese

In a sauce pan melt the better on medium heat. Add the garlic and onion until onion is translucent. Add the half cup vodka and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, and herbs and cook for 20 minutes. Stir in the light cream and parmesan, you wanna make sure the cheese really blends with the cream, and cook about 20 more minutes. The last 20 minutes I started the water and cooked the gnocchi. Once the water is boiling they only take two to three minutes. They even start to float when they are done. Foolproof!!

The steak was also easy. I went off a recipe from Alton Brown on foodnetwork.com.
SO EASY:
Take a skillet and stick it in the oven. Turn the oven to 500. When it reached 500 take the skillet out of the oven and put it on a burner on high. Take the steaks and rub a small amount of canola oil and season both sides with sea salt. Cook 30 seconds each side, then stick them back in the oven and cook for two minutes each side. Then let it rest for a few minutes. Perfect medium-rare steak. Thank Alton Brown you are a hero to many of us wanna be chefs!!

Tonight's wine comes by recommendation of the manager at Winchester Wine and Spirits. Justin has a love of the obscure grapes, the grapes that just aren't on the normal path. When I told him of the Pinot Meunier I had last night he turned me on to a Spanish Petit Verdot. Petit Verdot is one the major blending grapes in Bordeaux. It is used in blends as a flavor and tannin boaster, as it is a big, dark, dense fruit grape. This bottle tonight took a long time to open. I contemplated decanting the wine a few times but in the end decided to see where the grape would take me. In the beginning there was a dark inky, stew of hot, tannin, fruity mess, but as it opened the tannin surprisingly calmed down and it became a pleasant spicy cigar box with dark fruit. A great wine, I just wish I had turned on the AC before opening this bottle. Nothing like high heat and humidity to go with such a large wine. The next time I am at someones house grilling red meats, especially lamb I will go and find another bottle of Petit Verdot. Thank Justin for the outside the box pick!!