Tonight's dinner: Gnocchi mish-mash!

I was sitting here tonight pondering what to eat, knowing I have plenty of food in the house but nothing that was planned to go together. I did a little soul (aka food blog) searching and came up with this, made entirely of ingredients I had sitting around.

I write recipes "grandma-style" rather than "cookbook" style, so hang in there!

Boil a lot of water in a big pot. You're going to throw in about a pound of gnocchi and a whole bunch of asparagus in there, so make sure there's room! Cut up a bunch (like a pre-bound bunch from the market) of asparagus into bite-size pieces. Mine were skinny little guys, so I cut them into thirds.
While the water's boiling, saute some bacon that's been cut into small bite-size pieces (maybe 2-3 slices? I don't know since I pre-cut mine and keep it in the freezer for occasions such as these). Not too hot, you don't want it to cook too fast!
Dice up some tomatoes (I used 2 medium-sized heirlooms), and add those to the bacon once it's starting to look cooked but just shy of crispy, followed by about 2 cloves of minced garlic. Let it simmer, and check the gnocchi water--it's probably close to boiling by now.
Salt the water, and add the gnocchi and let it start floating. Season the tomatoes/bacon with some fresh black pepper, a big pinch of Italian seasoning, and a little pinch of crushed red pepper flakes. More or less, to your taste. There's probably no need for salt, because there's plenty in the bacon. About a minute after the gnocchi start to float, add the asparagus to the water and cook for another minute before draining. Add a touch (3/4 Tbsp?) of some kind of soft creamy cheese to the sauce and let it get all melty, though I'm sure it would taste just fine without the cheese. Put the gnocchi and asparagus back in the pot and pour the sauce over it. Give it a stir and enjoy!
My guess is this would be about 4 servings. Probably 6 if you're eating it with other things as well or as a side-dish.

Yummy yummy!

Now, why on earth is this hob-nob worthy of being added to a blog about sustainability? Well, a few reasons! For starters, the tomatoes and asparagus were organic and locally grown, so there's your environmentally friendly, and all the other ingredients could easily be acquired in such a fashion. But really, I think the most important reason is that this whole thing was literally whipped together from idea to in my belly in about 20 minutes, using ingredients I already had, and it is versatile enough that it can be sort of mixed and matched with whatever else might be on hand on any other day. How are we supposed to sustain ourselves if we make life so complicated all the time?? I've begun to notice that I might be developing a bit of food snobbery, and that's not good! I just want myself and others to take a more active role in what comes into and goes out of our lives, and one of the most basic ways of doing that is preparing our own meals. Yes, I prefer organic/local, but I think it would be far superior for a family (or friends!) to sit down together with a meal that took care and attention (even if it didn't take time) that wasn't organic, rather than to sit down to something brought home from a fancy organic restaurant. Not that I don't love restaurants, but hopefully you get my point: the kind of meal I put together tonight was easy, inexpensive, healthy yet just rich enough (less than 1 slice of bacon/serving, and no other oil!), and didn't take all night. I'd call all that sustainability in action!