Valentine's Adventure in the Realm of the Edible: Skillet Gnocchi and Florentine Steak Deliciousness

This last week was somewhat stressful for various reasons, so the cooking front was fairly quiet to compensate. It did, however, see the reincarnation of a beloved recipe from my home-schooled home-ec days... Black Bean Pizza revisited my life, and I remembered again how amazing, and simple, and good, it truly is. And frugal too, as I estimate that the whole thing probably cost $5, since I had gotten the vast majority of the ingredients very much on sale. I did a slight substitution by using Rotel instead of Italian tomatoes -- I figured it would kick things up a notch -- but otherwise just went by the recipe. But yeah, for a quick lazy-night or pizza-craving dinner... this one is a winner.

Our other cooking adventure was a Valentine's Day meal of Florentine steak and Skillet Gnocchi with Chard & White Beans... soo good. And when I say good, I mean that I sincerely doubt even a restaurant could do better on this one. We've been fans of gnocchi for a while, but this recipe surpassed even my expectations, and the red wine marinade and herbs really infused the steak with great flavor. It was also fun to cook the gnocchi in a skillet, as our past experiences had been strictly limited to boiling it pasta-style, and skillets are a lot more evocative of cooking shows and chef's hats to me. How can you go wrong there? We only made a few changes with the steak recipe, substituting fresh herbs in the marinade and then grilling it rather than broiling... personal preferences on both really. In any case, I recommend the whole meal enthusiastically, as fun, not overly strenuous recipes, that nonetheless turn out stupendous results... lending beautifully to a festive evening at home. :)

The photo below is from the Eating Well website... mine looked ALMOST as pretty, but not quite.  ;)