Home meals of the week #10

It was a bit of a slacker week for cooking on my part, due to finals for classes and getting sick for a a few days, but Mark whipped up some pretty good meals to share when we ate together. 

Gnocchi with spinach, mushrooms, onions, basil (from our indoor herb garden!), and chevre.  So delicious and satisfying!  I can't believe gnocchi isn't more popular and known (at least around my area).  I think it's a fabulous meal, and I'd probably eat it over pasta any day! 

Open-faced cucumber and hummus sandwiches on rye (inspired by tea with my mom last weekend).  Mark made wonderful homemade hummus with garbanzo beans, olive oil, fresh olives, habanero, and garlic.  It was the right amount of heat and garlic to temporarily clear out my sinuses so I could get some work done!  Mmmm!

Chipotle salmon burger with avocado and romaine on a kaiser bun.  Meh... not my favorite meal.  We got the patties at a local higher-end grocery store and I thought they might be a yummy not-so-typical Cinco de Mayo meal.  Unfortunately, they smelled fishy (duh!), but more than I'm used to, and we prepared them when my nose was finally beginning to gain the ability to smell again.  I wound up not being able to eat much of it at all, which is a rare thing, and I hate wasting food, so it was a bit of a bummer.



I also made some real vanilla extract this past Friday and I plan to write a post about it soon.  It looks and smells yummy, so I hope it turns out!