When you're here, you're family

Believe it or not, I recently experienced my first soup and salad meal at Olive Garden. My favorite was hands down the chicken gnocchi soup.

So I googled it and got a recipe.

Here it is. You can thank me later...

Melt 1/3 cup butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add in 1-2 cloves minced garlic and sauté.

Add 1 lb. cubed chicken and heat through. {I actually used pieces of rotisseried chicken and it was delicious that way too.}

Stir in 1/3 cup flour. Mix well until flour is cooked well into the chicken.

Next add 2 cups of milk and 2 cups of half and half. {The original recipe called for full cream, but I thought it was too thick that way. Half and half ends up more soupy.}

Add 3 chicken bouillon cubes and a half of a carrot, shredded; a stick of celery sliced super thin; ¼ cup of onion finely chopped and a half cup torn up fresh spinach.

Finally, add a bag of Gnocchi, about 17 oz. {The first time I made this I couldn’t find reasonably priced gnocchi, so I substituted some tortellini that happened to be on sale. The Professor liked it, but I thought the flavor was competing. Then I found a big box of it at Sams.}

Stir well, then cover and simmer for ten minutes while you practice saying “gnocchi.” It’s fun!

Mamma Mia!