Tag Team Mussels - A Recipe

My oldest and I made a great dinner the other night. We were sort of tag-teaming with bathing and watching the other two. I would do some cooking while my daughter would stand in the doorway of the bathroom watching the little one in the tub and the other one one in the living room, then the one in the tub would need something so we would switch places and I would be on bath duty and she would do the cooking.

Our Tag Team Dinner came out really really amazing and it was super easy. Super great cheater meal if you don't have a lot of time and you want something really delicious.

Tag Team Mussels and Gnocchi

1 box of frozen mussels from Trader Joes - the kind that has herbs and such in the bag with the mussels
Tomatoes (we used tiny cherry tomatoes)
Butter
White Wine (We used Sauvignon Blanc)
Garlic
S/P
Trader Joe's Gnocchi, the kind that is self stable.

Cook the Mussels according to the directions on the box. It's pretty much bring a big pot of water to boil and put the unopened bag of mussels in the water. 7 minutes or so later they are done. Set aside.

Saute some minced garlic, maybe 2 cloves. If you don't want it to be super garlicky then just smash the garlic and put it in the pan. The garlic will be more subtle that way.
Add the tomatoes. I like to use cherry tomatoes because they create little bombs filled with scalding tomato juice and hot sticky seeds and then when they cool off they shrivel and the juices inside are all saucy and yummy. When it was my oldest's turn at cooking she popped all the tomatoes in the pan.

Add the gnocchi and add the liquid from the mussel bag. Let everything get all and yummy and bubbly.
Add the wine. I think I added about a glass of wine, a generous pour. A pour someone would make if they were pouring good wine they didn't buy.
Add about 1/2 a stick of butter
When that gets melty and bubbly add the mussels and coat them with the pan sauce.

Have some additional liquid handy. The starch in the gnocchi kept making the sauce thicker and thicker. Depending on your preferred viscosity you'll need to play around with how much liquid to use. Some kind of vegetable stock or chicken stock, white wine, even water will help you thin it out.

Squirt with some lemon or lime juice. I think Meyer lemons would be the best choice. If you were thinking ahead and not making this tag-team style, you could add some shallots to the step where you saute the garlic. You could add a ton of italian parsley.

This was a big hit. We'll have to put it in the semi-regular rotation.