Three Cheese Tortellini with Sausage & Peas

At the NYC food and wine festival that the wonderful folks from Shop Rite sent me to, they had a Barilla stand, which I got to meet Ellie Krieger as well, by the way she is a sweetheart! At the Barilla stand they had this awesome dish, three cheese tortellini with sausage and peas, the first bite was amazing!! They were also making another dish at the same time, so the husband got a sample of that and I told him he could have some of my tortellini, so sorry I did! I figured I’d share because we’d come back and get more, but there was no more. It was so good, everyone ate it! So I knew I had to eat it again somehow, somewhere.  That night, back home, I ordered three cheese tortellini from a local restaurant and while it was good, it just didn’t send me where the tortellini from the food festival sent me.  At that point I knew what was for dinner next! This recipe was JUST as good as the chefs that were making it, it’s so flavorful!

Ingredients:

1 bag of three cheese tortellini

4 tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 small onion, diced

1/2 pound of italian sausage, in crumbles

1/2 cup white wine

1 cup peas

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. Saute onions in a large skillet until they turn translucent, about 5 minutes
3. Add crumbled sausages and brown well. Delgaze the pan with wine and reduce well.
4. Add peas and cook for 1 minute.
5. Add heavy cream, season with salt and peppers and cook for 5 minutes.
6. Cook tortellini to package directions. Drain and add to the skillet with sauce, toss well.
7. Add grated cheese and toss again and then serve.

Enjoy!

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Bacon & Eggs Over Asparagus

Breakfast for dinner, who would ever thought it would be so good on a night you really don’t feel like cooking, just want something easy to make after your 2 month old baby had 3 shots in one day and is just miserable in pain. This was the perfect meal for many reasons, one like I said it was super easy, two it was AMAZINGLY good.  Think bacon grease, asparagus and egg yolk, sounds so bad for you, but it only has 235 calories in it! I’m so glad I found this recipe on Good Housekeeping and tore it out and saved it. I made some adjustments, the original recipe called for thyme, dill, and parsley, which I left out, salt and pepper for enough for the hubby and me! I made this for two servings, so you may need adapt if you are making more or less!

Ingredients:

6 slices of bacon

About 20 stalks of asparagus, 10 for each, more or less to your taste

Salt and pepper to taste

4 eggs

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. In a jelly roll pan, arrange bacon in a single layer, spacing about 1/4 inch apart. Roast for 4 to 5 minutes until browned and crisped to your liking. Place on a paper towel line plate, to suck up the grease, set aside. If you want to get rid of the bacon grease, or save it and cook your asparagus in, I highly recommend the later, just because it adds so much flavor to the asparagus.
2. Add the asparagus to the pan in a single layer. Roll into the grease so it’s evenly coated. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the spears. Roast 6 to 8 minutes or until the spears are tender and a little crisp.
3. This is the tricky party, carefully crack eggs, without breaking yolks, spacing 1/4 inch apart on top of the asparagus. Return pan to oven and roast 5 to 6 minutes or until whites are just set and yolks are still runny. Sprinkle with some salt and pepper. Return bacon to pan and serve.

Enjoy!

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Lasagna Roll Ups

We had a surplus of lasagna noodles in our pantry for some reason and we just had Sicilian Lasagna the week before, so I thought I would make roll ups instead. I never made lasagna this way and I have to admit it’s much easier! Not to mention the lasagna rolls are so cute! It’s pretty easy to make for a weeknight dinner as well.

Ingredients:

6 lasagna noodles

2 cups of spinach

1 cup of ricotta cheese

1 cup grated mozzarella cheese

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/4 teaspoon of pepper

1 jar (26 ounces) of tomato sauce

1 pound of ground beef or turkey

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook lasagna noodles according to package, after they are done cooking, drain the water and let them cool off a bit. At the same time brown meat.
3. Mix the cheeses together, then add salt and pepper. In a glass baking dish pour half of the tomato sauce in the bottom.
4. To assemble the rolls, lay a noodle flat, add some tomato sauce, a layer of the cheese mixture then some spinach, then a layer of meat. Roll it up and carefully place in baking dish. Repeat for the rest of the noodles. Drizzle the rest of the tomato sauce on top of the rolls.
5. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

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Chili Boats

After an amazing weekend at the New York Food and Wine Fesitival, the hubby and I wanted something light and easy for dinner, since we consumed so much food over the weekend! We first were going to make a recipe we had at the food festival, but deiceded to just make chili.  The hubby looked for a bit on the interent for a good basic recipe to follow and he found one he liked and went with it.  The fun part of this recupe is to make your bread bowl look like a sailboat, hence the name chili boats! We scaled down this recipe for three servings.

Ingredients:

1 pound of lean chuck, ground
1 pound lean pork, ground
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1large onion, finely  chopped
8 ounces tomato sauce
1 cup water
3/4 cup of your favorite beer
2 Tablespoons chili powder
3 beef bouillon cubes
1 1/2  Tablespoons cumin, ground
1 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoons oregano leaves
1 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon coriander, ground
1/2  teaspoon unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon  hot sauce
1 teaspoon cornmeal
1 teaspoon flour
1 teaspoon warm water

Directions:

1. In a large stock pot  brown the beef and the pork, drain the fat all but 2 tablespoons of the fat.
2. Add the garlic and onion, cook and stir until tender.
3. Add the tomato sauce, water, beer, chili powder, bouillon, cumin, paprika, oregano, sugar, coriander, cocoa, and hot sauce. Mix well.
4. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer, covered , for 2 hours.
5. In a small bowl, stir together the cornmeal and flour, then add the warm water and mix well.
6. Stir into chili and cook, covered, for an additional 20 minutes.
7. Serve in a bread boat, AKA, cut a round bread loaf into halves so it looks like sailboat!

This recipe is adapated from MomsWhoThink.

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