Adventures in Cooking: Creamy Tomato Tortellini Soup

If you know me, then you definitely know that I'm probably one of the pickiest eaters on the planet but recently I've had a change of heart.  Most of my life I've pretty much ordered off the kids menu at restaurants because they had exactly what I wanted: Pasta with no sauce, just butter.  And for years, even in my 20s I would order the exact same thing restaurant to restaurant.

I've tried numerous times to try new things and there are just some foods I just don't like and probably won't ever. I don't like fish, red meat, sushi, a number of vegetables, strawberries, oranges...the list goes on and on.  

I was a vegetarian for the past 9 or 10 years or so mostly because I just never liked the taste of meat.  This past summer I decided to give meat another chance and for the first time since I can't remember, I'm starting to eat chicken!  I'm still weary about giving burgers another try but maybe I'll find the right one

With this recent drive to try new things, I've decided to teach myself how to be a better cook and learn new dishes.  Because basically all I know how to make is a mean Mac and Cheese (or any pasta for that matter), eggs (which I didn't know how to make until I was 20) and grilled cheese.

Sunday night I tried out a recipe that I found on pinterest via Two Peas and Their Pod.

The recipe is very simple but not having a lot of experience in cooking I really have to take recipes slow unless I want to spaz out in the kitchen!





First you begin by mincing the garlic, basil and onion (which totally made me cry)
I'm no Edward Scissor-Hands but I think I did just fine!
After mincing these 3 ingredients I put 1 TBL spoon of olive oil into the pot to heat up.  Once it did I went ahead and threw in the chopped onion and garlic to start.


Once that was warmed up and cooked it was time to add the bulk of the soup
In went the diced tomatoes
And then in went the vegetable broth.  The recipe is very vegetarian friendly but if you wanted to add a little more flavour my guess is that you could also substitute it for chicken broth.
After pouring in the veggie broth, I also added in the basil and seasoned it with fresh cracked black pepper and some salt. Then I let this simmer for about 15 or 20 minutes (covered).
It looked something like this when it was ready to be pulverized by the hand immersion blender.  But you could also use a regular blender if you did not have the other tool.
Looked something like this once it's blended.

The special ingredient to making this soup creamy is Greek yoghurt!  Only need a half a cup of it and I think that it makes all the difference.  Usually people will use heavy cream to make the soup creamier but the yoghurt doesn't have as much fat and gives the soup a nice thicker consistency


Next it was time to plop in the 3 cheese fresh tortellini.  I've eaten frozen tortellini in the past, but it's just not the same!  I think the next time I make this I want to attempt to make my own pasta but baby steps!  This was a great dish to test my skills
 Overall this took me about an hour to make, but mostly because I'm a novice cooker and really take my time getting everything together and prepping all of the ingredients.  If you're a good cook it should only take about half the time!
Serving it up!

My little addition to this recipe was adding a small dollop of mascarpone cheese in the center of the dish to add one more creamy element.  You can choose to garnish the soup with some fresh basil if you wish and also some fresh shredded parmesan!

My parents loved the dish and we had some happy tummies!  I've made a few other dinners before this one and my mom claims that this was the best one yet!  I definitely plan to make it in the future.

I'll leave the recipe at the bottom here if you'd like to try it yourself!

Always clean your plate and maybe keep some bread nearby to slurp up the rest of the soup




-Kristina


Yield: Serves 6-8
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes
ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
Dash of crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
2 (28 oz) cans diced tomatoes
1 (32 oz) container vegetable broth
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 (9 oz) packages fresh or frozen cheese tortellini (I used Buitoni)
Grated Parmesan cheese and fresh basil, for garnish, mascarpone cheese optional

directions:

1. In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the bay leaves and crushed red pepper flakes.
2. Add the diced tomatoes and vegetable broth. Stir in fresh basil and season with salt and black pepper, to taste. Simmer on low for 15 minutes.
3. Use a hand immersion blender to blend the soup (or carefully transfer soup to a blender to blend and return to the pot). Stir in the Greek yogurt until well combined. Stir in the cheese tortellini and cook on medium-low until tortellini is cooked, about 7-8 minutes. Serve warm.

Recipe adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod










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