Tag: tortellini


Sep
2014

Tortellini with Vegetables and Meatballs

categories: Recipes

Well Dined | Tortellini with Vegetables and Meatballs

I have been really busy and traveling a lot lately, I haven’t really been cooking much.  When I do, it is usually a quick throw together of some type of pasta, vegetable, and protein.  This particular version consisted of tri-color cheese tortellini, heirloom tomato, yellow zucchini, spinach, turkey meatballs, goat cheese, and fresh herbs.

Well Dined | Tortellini with Vegetables and Meatballs

While the water for the pasta was boiling, I sliced the zucchini and chopped the tomato and an onion.  I sauteed the onion and zucchini in some goat butter, then added the spinach and let it wilt.  I added the cooked tortellini on top with a little pit of pasta water (which helped with the wilting), then threw in the fresh tomatoes and took it off the heat.

Well Dined | Tortellini with Vegetables and Meatballs

Lastly I added some frozen turkey meatballs that I had heated in the microwave (I know, I know – I was in a hurry okay?), some crumbled goat cheese, and some fresh basil and parsley.  This was super easy and came together in less than 30 minutes.  Plus there was enough other stuff going on to distract my husband from the vegetables – score! (more…)


Apr
2014

Spring Vegetable and Tortellini Salad

categories: Recipes

Well Dined | Spring Vegetable and Tortellini Salad

Happy Easter!  It has been a long, crazy winter.  We had just a hint of spring before a cold snap hit again, but it looks like we are on our way back and hopefully it will last this time!

herbs

I took advantage of the nice weather to plant my container herb garden.  I’ve got chives, French thyme, English thyme, lemon thyme, and oregano thyme in one pot.  The big one has common sage, purple sage, rosemary, spearmint, tarragon, Greek and Italian oregano, and dill.  And the last one has sweet basil, thai basil, amethyst basil, lemon basil, and parsley.

bunnies

I also cleared out and cleaned up my tiny backyard, and while I was removing dead leaves, I accidentally uncovered a nest full of baby rabbits!  I was totally shocked and didn’t know what to do.  I yelled for my husband to bring me a box to put them in while I hit the internet for advice.  Leave them alone and put them back was the unanimous decision.  Mama rabbits only visit the babies 2 times a day to feed very quickly (1-2 minutes) so that predators won’t know where they are.  So baby rabbits have not been abandoned and they don’t need to be rescued (unless injured by lawnmower, dog, cat, etc…).  In fact, trying to take care of them yourself will likely kill them!

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Dec
2013

2013 Wrap Up

categories: Recipes

Mar
2013

Amazing Slow Cooker Soup

categories: Recipes

SAM_3104

Here’s a simple one – 6 ingredients, 1 crockpot, 4 hours, 1 amazing and addictive soup.  So easy, so delicious and creamy, and pretty healthy if you use low-fat cream cheese and turkey sausage.  Try to get bulk sausage from your butcher, if you can.  The big name/pre-packaged stuff (Jimmy Dean, I’m looking at you) has high fructose corn syrup – yuck!  Jasper is not a big fan of soups, unfortunately – which means that I got to eat this every day for lunch for a week and never got sick of it.  In fact, I was still craving it after it was gone!

Creamy Tortellini Soup
You can thank Pinterest for this one. You need frozen tortellini to stand up to the long cooking time. If you can’t find it, reduce the cooking time by half for dried and even more for refrigerated. Also, if you are not using “Italian Style” tomatoes, you will need to add some spices.
adapted from Little Fellows
serves 4-6

1 lb ground sausage, preferably turkey
1 (8 oz) block cream cheese or neufchatel (less fat), I use cream cheese made from Greek yogurt which is as low fat as neufchatel but has more protein
1 (19oz) bag frozen cheese tortellini
1 bag fresh spinach (5 oz is common, but use as much as you want)
2 (14.5 oz) cans Italian style diced tomatoes
4 cups low sodium chicken broth

Brown the sausage and put into the crockpot with the cream cheese. Stir around a bit to break up the cream cheese and get it to start melting (this will help prevent lumps). Add in the rest of the ingredients. Set temp to low and cook for 3-4 hours (check pasta texture at 3 hours).