Fresh Spinach Tomato Garlic Tortellini Soup

I pinned this recipe originally as a Slow Cooker. Turns out it’s just a 30 minute meal on the stove. I’ve been hoarding tomatoes for awhile. Recipe calls for 2? Oh I’ll buy 3… Suddenly I have 4 tomatoes and no idea what to do with them. A few nights of negative temperatures and suddenly nothing sounds better than soup.

I had to make a few adjustments to this recipe. Turns out I didn’t have everything I needed, but I already started so there was no going back. I’ve included my changes and comments in Bold. 

Original Recipe:

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Yield: About 6 servings

 Ingredients

• 1 3/4 lb Roma tomatoes (about 9 medium) (I had 4 roma tomatoes, so I threw in one can of garlic roma tomatoes to offset buying more)
• 1 1/2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 yellow onion finely chopped (1 1/2 cups) (I guestimated. I think I only added about 1/2 cup)
• 6 cloves garlic, minced (more or less to taste)
• 2 quarts (8 cups) low-sodium chicken broth (I only had 1 quart so I added an extra cup of water and used half a cup of Cream of Chicken Soup. Really not sure that is a great substitution.)
• 2 cups water
• 1 (20 oz) package refrigerated three cheese tortellini
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 tsp granulated sugar (Didn’t have any, so didn’t add it” 
• 6 – 9 oz fresh spinach, chopped
• 3 Tbsp chopped fresh basil (My basil plant is dying, so I only had 2 fresh leaves and had to use dried basil instead) 
• 1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese, for serving (I had fresh mozzarella instead) 

Directions:

• Heat a pot of water to a boil and fill a medium mixing bowl with ice water. Once water in pot boils, carefully drop tomatoes into water and boil until skins burst, about 3 – 4 minutes (if a few of them are having trouble bursting, you can remove them from the water and cut an “X” in the bottom of the tomato then return to water for about another minute until skins slightly pull alway). Remove from boiling water and transfer to ice bath, cool slightly then peel, seed and dice into bite size pieces, set aside. ( I overcooked my tomatoes. Once they burst they are done. I cooked them a few extra minutes so they were all mushy)
• In a pot, heat olive oil over medium heat, add onion and saute until tender, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and saute 30 seconds longer. Pour in chicken broth and water, then increase temp to moderately high heat and bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, add tortellini, season with salt and pepper to tastes and boil 7 minutes (or longer if directed on tortellini package). (Watch out. The tortellini cooks fast)
• Stir in sugar, tomatoes, spinach and basil and cook until heated through and spinach wilts. Serve warm topped with Parmesan cheese.

*If it’s winter and you’re having a hard time finding good Roma tomatoes, you could sub 2 cans regular/petite diced tomatoes, but during the summer when tomatoes are in their prime I highly highly recommend fresh. They make such a difference. (My diced tomatoes already came with garlic so I adjusted how much I added earlier) 

Recipe Source: Cooking Classy

My Result:

There was something missing… I can’t blame the recipe because I had to improvise quite a bit. Perhaps it was the lack of sugar, or the lack of fresh basil. I could’t quite put my finger on it.

The soup we had was what a soup should be. Quite a bit of soup with some tortellini. Overall I wished I had less liquid and more noodles, but this could be from my changes. I also felt the tortellini were really big. I wished I had used a smaller noodle. Does anyone make smaller tortellini? If so, use those. One noodle would take up the entire spoon and leave you with little broth.

A few weeks ago my sister made a different, creamier version of a tortellini soup. Honestly, I liked that one a little better. The tortellini worked better with the creamy soup. If I were to make this soup again I might opt for smaller noodles like ditalini or Orzo.

Grade:		Cost:		Time:
A		<$10		<30 Minutes
Level of Difficulty:
Medium
What I Would Change:
Do some prep and make sure you have all the ingredients. Change the pasta to something a little smaller.
Overall Impression:
I think that if I followed this recipe a little closer it might have been a little bit better. My creation was decent in its own right, but there was just something a hint off. Regardless it did a great job warming us up on a freezing cold night.

Healthy Pot Pie

How are you standing up to the cold? Is it finally getting to you? Well us too! That’s why I opted to make my family some Chicken Pot Pie. Since we’re still trying to stay reasonably healthy, I searched Pinterest for a healthy version of pot pie. Although the author means well by deeming it “healthy” it’s really not. If you made a stew with these ingredients without the flaky dough top, then we might be talking healthy, but as the recipe stands….. Don’t kid yourself. Pot Pies are meant for a hearty meal on a cold day. If you want a healthy meal for a cold day…. eat a salad. You’ll feel even colder.

Ok… ok… I didn’t mean to lecture you. I just wanted to give you fair warning about this before we began.

Let me introduce you too…… All the ingredients!

Most are home staples that you should have on hand, but this will take some time to prepare (unless your chicken or turkey is already cooked)

NOTE: You’ll also need to multi-task while making this.

We used some new bowls my sister got for Christmas for this recipe. Santa has good taste, does he not?

I mixed together the dough

Then worked on the filling.

My dad and I started to tag team on this. It got a little hard to manage. I had to make a double patch of dough because there wasn’t enough to fully fit our bowls.

Before placing in the oven, cover in a layer of egg wash(we saved the egg whites from the making the crust). This will make a flaky crust. My dad poured all the rest of the egg whites on top of his. He loves eggs and thought it tasted fantastic with the pot pie.

TADA!! Dinner:

Grade:		Cost:		Time:
B		Free (They’re all home staples)		1 1/2 hours
Level of Difficulty:
Medium
What I Would Change:
Completely cover the pot pie dish with dough. That will keep the moisture in. It was a little dry. Also be prepared to add some salt and pepper. It was a bit bland. I’d prefer to just add some crescent roll dough to the top. The homemade dough was kinda heavy.
Overall Impression:
Good, but could use some work. After making it a few times it could be perfected. No matter what the original cook says this is not healthy. It may be healthier than your current lifestyle, but is in no way as healthy as eating a plate of meat and vegetables.

 

 

 

 

 

Slow-Cooker Sunday: Tomato Basil Parmesan Soup

Welcome to our first Slow-Cooker Sunday! Today I’ll be sharing with you this recipe that I’ve been dying to try since I pinned it. Since I received not one but 2 kinds of slow cookers for Christmas, I thought it was high time I got started. I gathered up my ingredients and decided to throw in some extra tomatoes I already had on hand because I didn’t want them to go bad. (Keeping it real here, guys).

The instructions were really clear so I had no trouble getting the soup together even though I’ve never made a roux before! I love slow-cooker recipes because they are just leave-them-then-love-them easy.  Like the instructions said, I let the veggies, stock and spices mingle for a few hours and made the roux half an hour before dinner. This is what I ended up with:

I was a little nervous for the taste test because I have absolutely no experience making soups and I love tomato soup. I had high expectations! So let me cut to the chase, I loved it! It was creamy, and had great texture thanks to the veggies. It is definitely a step up from canned tomato soup, and thanks to the slow cooker it didn’t really take up much of my time to prepare.  I also thought my love for tomatoes made me biased so I asked my boyfriend (who hates tomatoes) and my sister (who is so/so on tomatoes) to give it a shot and they both liked it. I could see it going well with panini on a cold day as a grown up way to relive those grilled cheese and tomato soup days I had as a kid, but for now I’ll just pack it for lunch!

 

Grade:		Cost:		Time:
B+		$5		Active: 10 minutes Total: 6-7 hours
Level of Difficulty:
This was very easy to accomplish. Good for a fearless beginner.
What I Would Change:
I added diced tomatoes I already had and it added a nice texture.
Overall Impression:
I really enjoyed the soup, but the roux seemed a little intimidating for someone who had never done it.