Cooking with Blobby

Technically, this is Cooking with Betsy. 

My cousin Betsy, who has probably never made a bad meal in her life, has an IG page where she uses the hashtag #foodporn.  I'm going out on a limb that is probably the only time she's used the word "porn".  But she posts recipes there. 

My cooking, I steal from other sites. I'm guessing Betsy does a lot of it from scratch.....or scratch-lite. Do I think she's making her own tortellini?  I do not. 

So she posted a recipe for  Chicken Tortellini Soup, and I was immediately drawn to it. 

Yeah, it's soup, but with chicken and cheese tortellini, it's the main course. And oh so frickin' good.  It's Betsy - so I can't really drop all the f-bombs I usually do. 

Yeah, there are a number of ingredients, but it's not horribly labour intensive at all. And it's basically all in one dutch oven. 

Ingredients: 

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 diced onion

4 garlic cloves diced

1 Tablespoons tomato paste

14oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes

1 1/2 cups roasted chicken breast cut into bite size pieces (season when roasting to layer in flavor. You can also cut up a rotisserie chicken to save time)

1 Parmesan rind

4-5 c chicken stock

3/4 c heavy cream

3c spinach

10 oz refrigerated cheese tortellini

Parmesan cheese & crushed red pepper

Directions: 

Heat oil in a large pot over medium low heat and add onions , garlic, pinch of salt and pepper. Sauté until tender about 5 min. 

Stir in tomato paste and cook for a few minutes. Add tomatoes, chicken, parm rind and 4 c broth. Bring to boil then simmer for 30 min. 

I had chicken thighs on hand, so that is what I used. I cooked them in the air fryer first and cut them up before putting them in the pot.  And I can't believe I had a parm rind to throw in too!  

Then add in cream, spinach, tortellini and cook until spinach wilts and pasta plumps up about 5 min. 

Add more stock if needed. Taste here, I added more salt and lots of freshly ground pepper and red pepper flakes. 

I had added some red pepper flakes in the simmer process (two pics above) and again here. There were no amounts given, and well........when it somes to red pepper flakes I always err on the side of "more!". 

It "plated" up nicely. We used spoons. Had rustic bread with it for dipping and cleaning up the bowl. I know it was a soup, but it didn't feel like one.  Hearty and light at the same time. 

It made five big servings.  My sister-in-law tried some and put it over rice. This worked for her as the rice helped with how much red pepper I put in. She's not a huge fan of that kind of spice, but she loved it too. 

This one is a winner that I'll keep making.