olive oil |

In addition to mushroom-cream-white wine sauce, the one I made today with Italian sausage, tomatoes and herbs is my favorite sauce to serve with gnocchi. This sauce is so rich and flavorful. I like to use fresh tomatoes, but canned ones can be used as well. Usually I like to prepare homemade gnocchi, but don’t always have enough time, so this time I used store bought ones. This is how I make the sauce:

Ingredients:

Serves 4-6

2 packs of gnocchi (each 500 g or 1 lb)
2-3 Italian fresh sausages (or any other fresh kind)
500 g or 1 lb tomatoes (blanched, peeled and chopped)
1/4 of a large green pepper (finely sliced)
1/4 of a large red pepper (finely sliced)
3 garlic cloves (smashed and finely chopped)
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
basil
oregano
parsley

1. Cook gnocchi in lightly salted water until they start coming to the surface. Strain, rinse and set aside.

2. Cut fresh sausage into 1/2 inch pieces and fry in a pan with a little olive oil until done and nicely browned. Remove the sausage pieces from the pan and set aside.

3. In the same frying pan saute garlic and peppers for few minutes on a low temperature. Add chopped tomatoes and 1/4 cup water and simmer for about 10 minutes or until sauce starts thickening. Add salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.

4. Now add sausage to the sauce, chopped herbs and gnocchi. Mix until combined and serve.

Yum, Yum, Yum! 🙂

This is a wonderful side dish that goes well with fish or any sea food. I’ve tried it first time when I was just a little girl vacationing with my parents at the Adriatic coast of Croatia. It is very simple and easy to make and so rich in flavor. Couple of years ago when we traveled to Bosnia, we also visited Croatian coast and had some excellent fish and potatoes with swiss chard (Blitva – in Croatian). The other day I was looking through our summer vacation photos and just had the urge to cook blitva with some fish.

Island of Pag, Croatia [ this handsome man in the picture is my husband 🙂 ]

Mediterranean Potatoes and Swiss Chard

Serves about 4 – 6 people (excellent side dish to fish or sea food)

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs (750 g) potatoes
1 lb (500 g) Swiss chard
3 – 4 tbsp olive oil (I use extra virgin olive oil)
3 – 4 garlic cloves
salt
fresh ground black pepper

Preparation:

1. Peel potatoes and cut them into bite-size cubes. Boil (not too soft) and strain them. Set aside.

2. Clean and wash Swiss chard, remove the stems by folding leaves into half and cutting them out. Cut leaves into 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) ribbons. Boil them for about 5 minutes in salted water. Strain. (If you want a mashed potatoes effect, reserve about 1/2 cup of boiling water and add to sauteed chard)

3. Crush and finelly chop garlic. Lightly heat olive oil, add garlic and sautee just until fragrant. Now add Swiss chard, sautee for few more minutes and add potatoes. Spice with salt and fresh ground black pepper. That is all.

Enjoy with some salt water fish or other sea food!