eat make read

One great stores and two great meals. On our walk around Park Slope this weekend, we visited Russo’s for the first time. Oh boy, that place is amazing! When you first walk in you’re immediately taken by the most delicious smells. There are refrigerators full of fresh homemade pasta, sauces, cheese, desserts and more. There’s also any Italian ingredient you could ever dream of. At the back they have a delicatessen that has prepared food that was very tempting.

We were very good and only walked out with gnocchi stuffed with pesto, sweet dry soppresatta, and a container of fresh matriciana sauce. Inspired by such goodness, I made two different and delicious meals.

I had never even seen stuffed gnocchi before so I decided to use that first. Because the gnocchi already used pesto, I decided to just use a simple oil sauce with a few items to jazz it up.

Gnocchi with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Soppresatta:

2 Tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup soppresatta, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 package fresh stuffed gnocchi with pesto (or just regular)
olive oil
freshly grated parmesan

1. Boil water and cook gnocchi as directed on package.
2. When you only have a few minutes left, heat enough olive oil to cover pan over low-medium heat.
3. Toss tomatoes, soppresatta and garlic in pan, cook about 3-4 minutes. Basically enough time to heat it, but not burn the garlic.
4. Place gnocchi on plate and cover with oil mixture.

I was also really excited to try the matriciana sauce, but I wanted something meaty to go with it. I usually default to sausage, but I decided to be a little daring and try to make meatballs. Oh boy, let me tell you the results were phenomenal! I found this recipe for meatballs on epicurious, but decided to tweak it a bit.

Meatballs (makes 9 big meatballs):

2 large eggs
1/4 cup plain breadcrumbs
4 Tablespoons parmesan cheese, grated
1 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup chopped white onion
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 lb ground turkey
1/2 lb ground beef

extra olive oil for cooking

1. In a big bowl, mix all the ingredients together.
2. Form meatballs with your hands. I made big mama ones, but you can make whatever size you want.
3. In a large skillet, heat enough olive oil to cover bottom of pan over medium heat.
4. Drop the meatballs in the pan and cook for about 12-15 minutes.
-If you’re making spaghetti, the pasta and the meatballs should take around the same amount of time, so it works pretty well.

Once the meatballs were cooked, I added my sauce and let them simmer together for about 5 minutes. Can I tell you how awesomely delicious these were? They were so tender they almost melted in your mouth. I think the whole process took about 30 minutes. So, so worth it.