Chicken Gnocchi Soup

I don't have enough good things to say about this soup.  Even Andy loves this soup!  How about that?  It uses half and half, which I usually avoid like the plague, but in this case it is so worth the calories!  Besides being delicious, this soup comes together in about 30 min if you have cooked chicken and store bought gnocchi on hand.   It doesn't get much better than this!

I had pinned about three Olive Garden soup copycats on Pinterest.  This is the closest to what I ended up making, but even so I changed it a little.

Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 T unsalted butter
1 medium onion, diced (about 1/2 cup)
1 cup chopped carrots (I used grated)
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 cloves garlic, finely minced (1 tsp jarred pre-minced)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whole milk
2 cups chicken broth (I use 2 tsp chicken base and 2 cups of water)
16 ounce package gnocchi (I find mine at Aldi near the pasta.)
2 cups cooked, shredded or diced chicken breasts
1 to 2 cups fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

(Lots of the recipes I saw also use 1/2 cup sliced celery and 1/4 cup ground nutmeg.  I don't care for either of those ingredients, but you could use them if you do happen to like them.) 

DIRECTIONS

Get water boiling for gnocchi.  Once it boils cook the gnocchi.  It only takes about 2 minutes for the gnocchi to float to the top, which means they are ready to eat.

Melt butter in the oil on Medium/High heat.  Saute onion, carrot, garlic and thyme a few minutes.  

Add flour.  Cook a few minutes, so the soup doesn't taste flour-y.  Add chicken broth slowly, stirring to get it nice and mixed together/smooth.  

Boil.  It should be pretty thick.  Add the half and half and milk.  (If it ends up too thick for your liking you can add more milk, half and half or chicken broth.)  

Add gnocchi.  Add chicken.  Add spinach (it will wilt).  Add about 1 tsp salt.  

Make sure the chicken is heated through and enjoy!

Feta Dip

Oh my goodness!  I love this recipe!  I found it here.  I love the memoriesoncloverlane blog so much!  The author is an inspiring woman who lives in the same small town as me, which of course makes me love her so much more!  I highly recommend checking out her blog here.

Anyways, back to the recipe.  It is so simple.  I think that's part of what makes it so amazing, but it really is delicious!!  The feta is nice and salty, and the Greek seasoning is one of my favorites.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

olive oil

1 block (1#) of feta cheese  (I sometimes use the pre-crumbled kind to save time)

tomatoes (any kind)…I use about 3-4 Roma’s

1 bunch of green onions

1 baguette

Cavender's Greek Seasoning

1 large platter

Directions

Wet the platter generously with olive oil

Dice the green onions and tomatoes.  Throw them on the olive oil.

Crumble the feta cheese and throw that on the platter.

Sprinkle about 1 Tablespoon of the Greek Seasoning on top.  (If you can't find Cavender's, you can sub with oregano and a little pepper and some salt to taste.)

Mix it gently all together.  Slice the baguette nice and thin.  Use the baguette to grab some of this amazing dip and enjoy!

A Few More From November

Here are some pictures of us from this fall.  I don't think I posted any good pictures of Simon dressed up as Yoda for Halloween.  He is so cute!  And Abe and Eli are sweetie pies too.  :)

We had so many leaves this year!  Our neighborhood has lots of mature trees that are beautiful, but they drop tons of leaves that blow all around.  I raked three or four times to get them cleaned up.  Once I even let the boys "help".  They loved it!

I love a good deal, so when there was a Groupon for bowling I couldn't resist!  It was about to expire, so we went the day before Thanksgiving.  The boys had never been, and it had been ages since Andy and I had gone.  We got the bumpers and ramp thingy for the boys.  It was so fun!  I hope we can go again soon.

Thanksgiving and Zoo Lights

We had such a fun Thanksgiving! One of our favorite little traditions when Fritz and Becky host is getting a family picture at the bottom of the stairs before we leave. Becky is always our photographer and does such a nice job... Even though we are the worst family in the world to take pictures of as evidenced here:



This is my favorite







My bad!





Is this the only one that Abe has his eyes open?



Tonight we went to the Lights at the Zoo. We weren't sure if it was going to rain, but lucky for us it was in the fifties and barely started to sprinkle as we were heading home. We missed going with the big family group like we usually do, but it's getting hard the bigger the family gets and the older and more involved the kids become to find a time that works for everybody. Anyways, we had a great time!

Simon's birthday and October for Us

I know these I am perpetually behind posting pictures, here's a batch from October:

We didn't get Simon many gifts, but he loves his new ball and books! Simon had some great helpers to open his presents.







Now that Simon is one year old and over 20 lbs we are able to switch him forward facing. He loves it. Especially when we have a movie going on the DVD player.



Mmmmm! Yummy cake! We just did cake with our little family this time. (And for some reason almost all of the pictures turned out blurry.)





I took over 15 pictures of him at breakfast. This was the best one:



Darth Vader and Boba Fett. I mean Eli and Abe.





We went to Uptown Maumee's trick or treat. 

We joined the YMCA recently and signed up Abe and Eli for swimming lessons. They are off to a great start!



The last time we went to the zoo we only went to the Reptile House. The boys like it best.



Abe at his class Halloween party.





I took the boys to Coldstone. Before we even saw the ice cream Eli told me he wanted the blue one. (Yuck!) I decided to let him have his way this time. He was one happy boy!



Abe went with mint ice cream and brownies. Can you guess which flavor I helped eat the most?



Sometimes Simon was impatient with me feeding him ice cream.





Thumbs up for Coldstone!



I love chasing this boy around the house!



I might have posted this one before, but it's classic Eli.



I went shopping for the first time in a long time. Here's my new outfit.



Pumkpkins!







Downtown Octo"boo"fest a few weeks ago. It was cold and windy, but we had a great time anyways.

We finally repainted the kitchen walls. We didn't love the blue we originally chose. I really do love this new shade. It's not very different, but a little more grey and it's not semi-gloss, it's eggshell or whatever sheen is just less than semi-gloss.



And this is our new clock that we just got yesterday. I really like it.