Recipe Round up!
Tortellini Soup
I printed out a recipe from Spark People for what I thought was tortellini soup, but it turned out to be a recipe for a side dish that was just called “tortellini with vegetables.” Since I still had soup on my brain, I read the recipe a few times, thinking they missed an ingredient. “Where’s the broth?” Then I read the instructions and found out it wasn’t soup! BUT, I wanted to make it soup, so this is my version!
Ingredients:
1 medium red pepper, sliced
1 medium green pepper, sliced
1 orange pepper, sliced
4 cloves of garlic
1 cup snow peas, sugar snap peas, or green beans (I used pea pods)
2 tsp. olive oil
1 banana pepper, sliced (optional)
1 medium onion, chopped
5 or 6 fresh basil leaves (didn’t have that!)
salt and pepper to taste
2 quarts of chicken broth
2 chicken breasts, boneless, cubed and cooked
In a big blender, I chopped up the veggies (except the pea pods!) and added some of the chicken broth and pureed all the veggies.
I do not like chunks of veggies!
In a big stock pot, I added the oil, the pureed veggies, and the rest of the chicken broth. Heat on low, stirring for about 10 minutes. Then in a separate skillet I cooked 2 chicken breasts, which I cut into small pieces until they were almost cooked through and added that to the pot. Then I added the frozen cheese tortellini (1 bag) and put the heat on high until it came to a boil, then reduced the heat and cooked for about 6-8 minutes until the tortellini was cooked. If you are using the fresh basil, after the soup is done, add the basil to the soup and stir it in. It turned out so great!
It was a little spicy, but the flavors of all the peppers was wonderful. For my bowl, I picked out 1 serving of tortellini (which was 12 tortellini for only 290 calories!) and I took about 1 1/2 cups of broth and picked out the pea pods and a little chicken. So I am thinking it’s about 320 calories or so for a nice big bowl. If you wanted to have it less calories, then you could reduce the amount of tortellini!
I will be making this one again for sure!
Next on recipe round up? Southwest egg rolls!
It’s a great way to use up leftover egg roll wrappers
Inside my egg roll wrap was:
2 oz. cooked Italian sausage
1/2 cup black beans
1/4 cup diced onions
a little cumin
a little chili powder
1 oz. chihuahua cheese
In a small skillet, I sauteed the onions until they were soft, added the Italian sausage, the black beans and spices and cooked until the sausage was cooked through.
Taking one egg roll wrap, I laid down .5 ounce slice of the cheese, and half the bean mixture and wrapped it up. I did the same thing with the other egg roll wrap. I brushed egg white over top and baked for about 17 minutes until the tops were browned.
I served it on a bed of greens, with some baby carrots cut up, the 2 egg rolls and a drizzle of fat free ranch dressing. All I can say is, OMG, these were so good!!
Calories for this HUGE plate are 486 calories, 17 grams of fat, 6 grams of fiber and 22 grams of protein!
Jenn’s fajita seasoning
Jenn’s Fajita Seasoning Mix
2 TB. chili powder
1/2 TB. salt
1 TB. paprika
1 TB. sugar
2 tsp. chicken boullion (crushed cubes or powder from a jar)
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. (or more!) or crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp. ground cumin
Mix together in a bowl, use about 1-2 tablespoons per pound of meat.
Which leads me to this recipe for Crock Pot Fajitas!
Place fresh or frozen chicken breasts in a crock pot, add the above mentioned fajita seasoning to taste, add 1/2 cup of chicken broth and cook on low all day.
When you get home, just shred the chicken, quickly saute some peppers and onions and serve on tortillas! You could add the peppers and onions in the crock pot as well, but I don’t like them super mushy, so I preferred to cook those separately.
I hope everyone has a great weekend, my daughter and I are going apple picking at a farm in Indiana for Girl Scouts on Sunday, so that should be fun!