I’m not going to mince words here. This meal made me a feel like a flipping culinary wizard. I took a bite and said “oh fuck ya”. Out loud. Alone. In my house. I am currently in mourning that I didn’t make any extra.
After realizing earlier in the day that it has been a while since I cooked, I really felt compelled to rectify this… and ideally without going to the grocery store. I have a garden loaded with kale and somewhat unripe tomatoes. It seems reasonable that I could make something happen here. Thankfully during some prior trip to Trader Joe’s I felt it was necessary to buy gnocchi – so I had that too. And honestly, that’s really it.
What makes this meal so amazing is all the texture and flavor combinations. There is absolutely nothing in this world like a slow roasted tomato. It’s sweet and buttery smooth and yet salty – so everything pretty much. Then add the soft gnocchi but with just enough of a sear on them to be crispy. And then you have the kale… this is where an unexpected magic happened. Because of the way I cooked it, it got crispy – not sauteed. So it was essentially like kale chips for dinner. Oh, and I also added some diced pancetta because why not.
The only thing stopping me from making this meal again every night this week is that slow-roasted tomatoes are … slow. I honestly didn’t watch the time much on how long I kept them in the oven for. I do know that I got home from a hike at 5:43 pm… and I was hungry then. So I quickly grabbed some tomatoes from the yard, sliced them, cored them, sauced them up, and put them in the oven. Magnificent.
So here’s how it goes.
- Preheat oven to 300.
- TOMATOES// Slice tomatoes in half and remove the juices and core. Lay them on the baking sheet and drizzle heavily-ish with olive oil. Sprinkle moderately with sugar and kosher salt. Put in the oven as long as you can handle it. I lasted probably an hour.
- GNOCCHI // Cook gnocchi as directed. For me this was tossing some gnocchi into a pot of boiling water for 3-4 minutes. They are done when they float to the top of the water. Easy peasy.
- KALE // In a medium heat skillet, add some roughly chopped kale to the pan with some drizzles of olive oil. Optional? Add in some diced pancetta to crisp up.
- Add the boiled gnocchi to the kale skillet with a bit of butter. At this point, everything is already cooked so you are just getting it to the textures you like. I let the skillet cook at a medium heat until my gnocchi were just slightly light brown.
- PLATE & EAT // This is simple. Just put the kale and gnocchi on a plate and then add your roasted tomatoes. I drizzled the top with olive oil for good measure.
Shopping List (for 1 person)
3 large leaves of Kale
3 small tomatoes
1 cup of gnocchi
1/4 cup of diced pancetta
olive oil
sugar
kosher salt