A typical night at our house.

Casey had training in SC for 4 days this past week. Not only did he miss me, but he said he was so excited for dinner on Tuesday night because he loves my cooking and it's "so good." This made me incredibly happy. Who would not appreciate this compliment, right?

(Oh and I missed him too, yes.)

Nevermind the fact that on Friday night (I think it was Friday), they went to the mess hall for dinner. On the menu? Chicken Cordon Bleu. Sounds delicious, I know (minus the ham factor). Well, names can be quite deceiving apparently. Casey went on to describe the meal. A frozen chicken patty, topped with a slice of ham, and then a slice of cheese. Melted. I just started laughing. In retrospect, it probably wasn't very nice of me, but he's a funny guy. He said the best thing about the meal was that there was ice cream at the end. You really can't go wrong with ice cream.

I felt bad about the terrible food. It makes me want to pre-make 42 dinners to send in a gigantic cooler with him to Alabama for Officer training coming up in a couple weeks. Is that not okay? Does that get you yelled at? Not on the packing list?

All that to say, I tried to design a pretty good menu I think for the next two weeks to fill him up on my healthy, gourmet, tantalizing dinners.

Casey was my sous-chef last night. He's awesome. We love cooking together.

Last night we had:

(drumroll...)

Whole-Wheat-Sweet-Potato Gnocchi with Sauteed Spinach and Charred Cherry Tomatoes

I always add herbed chicken and white wine for good measure. YUM. And I paired it with a green salad with cherry tomato, cucumber, feta, dried cranberries, and a sprinkling of oil and vinegar.

Here's the recipe. You have to try this.

1- 16 ounce package sweet-potato-whole-wheat gnocchi 

2 medium-sized chicken breast halves
Rosemary
Thyme
Oregano
Herbs de Provence
Parsley
Black pepper
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 cups spinach
1 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup white wine
                                                     2 Tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese

In a saute pan, add olive oil and chicken breasts. As chicken begins to cook, cut into small cubes or strips. Add herbs and spices (to your desired flavor). I don't ever measure the spices and herbs because the original recipe did not have chicken, but I'm fairly generous because I like to taste the flavor when I'm eating. But you don't want it to be too overwhelming. When chicken is cooked completely, remove from the pan and set aside.

Add a bit more olive oil to the pan if needed, and throw in cherry tomatoes at medium-high heat. I don't measure the cherry tomatoes either. We love tomatoes. I buy the standard size container of cherry tomatoes and take out however many I'm going to put on the salads, then half the rest to put into the recipe. Toss for about 30-45 seconds until you see some color on them, then add gnocchi to the pan and continue to saute for about 1 minute until they begin to lightly color and heat through.

Add white wine to the pan along with the spinach. Surprise! I don't measure the spinach. Haha. I go to the DIY salad bar at Harris Teeter and fill the smaller container with spinach, packed (it looks to be about 2 cups though). Merely because we don't make straight up spinach salads very often so I don't buy huge bags of spinach (too much prevents calcium absorption, and I need calcium). We make mixed greens salad. I don't measure the wine either, I just pour until I can smell it. Probably ends up being a bit more than a 1/4 cup.

Cook until the spinach has wilted slightly, then add the chicken pieces back in. Continue tossing until the spinach is wilted and the wine has cooked down. If it looks like you've accidentally added too much wine, cover the pan so that the sauce can reduce. It shouldn't be too "saucy". Let the dish heat through. Serve and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and enjoy!!

This is seriously one of our favorites! Doesn't look too pretty, but it's so yum. And I know it sounds intense to make, but it really is so easy. No joke.

P.S. While we were cooking, DJ Casey was playing music. Then LMFAO "Party Rock Anthem" came on, and it was so funny. Immediately all 3 of us started doing different dance moves and we were all into them. I was doing the egyptian, Katie was doing the tomohawk, I couldn't tell what Casey was doing out of the corner of my eye, then suddenly we all shifted dance moves at the same time. I started doing the robot and Katie started the sprinkler. All to the beat of the music of course. Again, I couldn't tell what Casey was doing. I just started laughing cause none of it was planned. It's just one of those songs that the beat just makes you move. And we all started spontaneously, but at the same time. So we stopped our severely uncool dance moves (We save the cool ones for public dance arenas...seriously. We all can for real dance.), and I asked Casey exactly what he was doing, cause he acted surprised that we could tell he was performing. And come to find out that his secret move is "oh I was doing right butt cheek clenches"...to the beat of the music. I love him.

P.P.S. And of course there was wine.