Tortellini Chicken

I had a senior moment a few days ago. I could have sworn I shared this recipe here before. I wanted to print off the recipe for a friend and it wasn't there. Sometimes I wonder about my noggin. Tortellini Chicken is one of my families favorites and one that I share with others quite often, because even the pickiest eaters seems to love it. It has large chunks in it so it's a casserole that is easy to separate out if someone doesn't want the mushrooms they can just push them aside.

Here's the play by play, if you want to skip right to the printable it's at the end.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

2 cups Monterey Jack Cheese grated, or pre shredded from your grocer works super too!

Clean a 4 ounce package of White Button Mushrooms and set aside. If you are a mushroom lover, feel free to add more.

Boil and drain one 20 ounce package fresh Cheese Tortellini. I find it next to the cream cheese in my grocery store. If your family is apposed to the multi colored pasta, well then trade them in for a new more adventurous family! Or just buy the plain all white cheese tortellini, that would probably be easier.

Cut 3 chicken breasts into bite sized cubes.

Season 1/3 cup flour with 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt.

Unless you have a very large frying pan, you will have to brown the chicken in shifts, so start by melting 2 tablespoons of butter. Dredge chicken pieces in flour and brown in butter.

Remove cooked pieces to a plate.....

Or if you are efficient, unlike myself, you can place the browned meat directly into your casserole dish. Add the additional 2 tablespoons of butter as needed and continue browning chicken pieces until finished.

Cover chicken with drained pasta and sprinkle 1 cup of shredded cheese over the top. Honestly you could put the tortellini in first and then the chicken and sprinkle the cheese in there somewhere. There is no wrong way to do it. Just make sure everything is spread out evenly, so when you serve it up each spoonful has a little bit of everything.

Now it's time to make the sauce:

With out cleaning the pan add 3/4 cup chopped sweet onion to the pan. The moisture from the onions will help loosen all the browned goodness from the chicken. Using a spatula, saute onions and loosen browned bits, when onions start to look translucent.....

add the can of chicken broth, bouillon, and sugar. Cook for 2 minutes at a low boil.

Add mushrooms, let cook for an additional 2 minutes.

Turn temperature to low. Sprinkle in the remaining Monterey Jack Cheese, and stir until melted and combined.

Remove pan from heat and stir in 1/2 cup sour cream.

It may take a minute or two to get sauce to become smooth. I use a slotted spoon, you could get out the big guns and use your whisk if you want.

Pour sauce over chicken, and pasta. Try to distribute the mushrooms evenly over the casserole.

Cover tightly with tin foil, and pop in your oven for 45 minutes.

Serve with Texas Toast or a crusty loaf!

If I share this meal with someone, I usually bring them a green salad with lots of veggie's too, but most of the time the work of a salad is taken for granted by my family so I don't even bother fixing a salad for them anymore......that's the truth the whole truth Pthhthththt!

Chicken Tortellini

printable recipe

4 tablespoons Butter

1 20 ounce package, fresh Cheese Tortellini

3 Chicken Breasts, boneless cut into bite sized cubes

1/3 cup Flour

1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt

3/4 cup Onion, chopped

1 tablespoon Chicken Bouillon granules (or 2 bouillon cubes)

1 8 ounce can Chicken Broth

1 teaspoon Sugar

2 cups Monterey Jack Cheese, shredded

4 ounces fresh white button Mushrooms (more if you like)

1/2 cup Sour Cream

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

1. Boil water in large pot, add tortellini, cook for 5 minutes. Drain and place tortellini’s in bottom of a lightly buttered 9x13 baking dish. Sprinkle half of the Monterey Jack cheese over tortellini’s.

2. Toss chicken pieces in flour. Melt butter in large fry pan add floured chicken to sizzling butter. Lightly brown chicken in butter. Do chicken in shifts if needed. Removing chicken to a plate then adding more. Then transfer chicken pieces to baking dish. Evenly distributing them over noodles.

3. Add chopped onions to the same pan, cook until transparent. Add bouillon, chicken broth, sugar, cook for 2 minutes then add mushrooms to pan, and cook for 2 minutes more.

4. Add remaining cheese to to sauce, lightly stir with spatula until cheese is melted. Remove pan from heat and add sour cream and blend until smooth and creamy. Pour mushroom sauce over chicken and tortellini.

5. Cover dish with foil, bake for 45 minutes.

Enjoy!

SPAETZLE and other easy sides

Spaetzle, spaetzle, spaetzle....say that three times fast. Spaetzle is a traditional German noodle. When I lived in Germany, I actually was sent over to Oma's house for the afternoon after school one day to get a spaetzle making lesson by my spitfire of a German host grandmother. This woman was memorable, and lovable...and she taught me to make spaetzle with the love a drill sergeant. Part of the problem was my language was not quite up to par and then her dentures were clacking.

Spaetzle is like pie crust the more you make it the easier and the better it gets. I don't make spaetzle nearly as much as pie crust so bear with me as I demonstrate the art of spaetzle making.

Spaetzle

printable recipe

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 medium eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

3-6 tablespoons of water

13 cups of water + 3 teaspoons of salt for boiling

4 tablespoons of butter for pan frying

ACHTUNG! Here we go!

Sift the flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt out on to parchment paper.

Dump flour/salt into mixer with the dough attachment on the mixer.

Make a nice nest for the eggs. Crack the eggs into the nest.

Start the mixer on slow and gradually add the water a tablespoon at a time. By the way Oma did not have a nice Kitchen Aid mixer we did it all my hand!

You want a nice firm dough. Not too sticky, definitely not runny.

It should hang on to your mixer like so but still be pliable....comparable texture to pizza dough.

You can make spaetzle without one of these doo-hickeys a Potato Ricer...call it what you will. I learned to make spaetzle by smashing the dough through the bottom of a colander into the boiling water. And before I bought this one, I pinched off pieces and threw them into the boiling water....I would not recommend that method.

One more spaetzle making tip...if you high strung or easily distracted like myself, you can make these noodles ahead, at a time when your kids are not running around and opening every cupboard and hungry waiting for supper to be put on the table. Even if you are as calm as a cucumber I would suggest you do this a few hours in advance and then heat them up before you are ready to eat.

1. Fill pot with water add 3 teaspoons of salt and bring it to a rolling boil.

2. Spray Pam or any non-stick cooking spray on your Potato Ricer.

3. Fill the ricer with about a cup of dough at a time. Now get out your mOOscles.

4. Now press the dough through the ricer and slice it off with a knife as it comes through. As seen above.

5. Drop the pieces of dough into the boiling water, they will stick together a bit and look all funky, these are random type noodles they do not need to be uniform. Let them boil for aproximately 3-5 minutes. Then take a strainer and lift them out tapping all excess water off.


5. Then you can transfer them directly to a frying pan with 2 tablespoons of melted, on the verge of browning, butter. See how it is just getting brown on the edges...Perfectamundo!

Drop those little guys in there, and fry them up. You will do this in two shifts. Use the second 2 tablespoons of butter for the second 1/2 of your noodles.

You want them to get brown and slightly crispy. Transfer them to a glass dish. Later when you are ready to eat. Place the dish in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes just till they are warmed through.

Now I am all about easy. So if all that seemed just a bit too complicated for your busy schedule or your temperment. Then grab a bag of these noodles at the store, boil them up, drain well, toss them in a frying pan with some butter brown them up and Voila! Speedy Spaetzle...just don't tell Oma.

So I am assuming you have your Saurerbraten marinating, so this is why I wanted to give you some sides to go with your roast and gravy. You can also boil up potatoes and toss them with some butter and parsley as an alternative to the noodles. The other two sides I serve with Sauerbraten are Rotkohl / red cabbage, and butter spiced carrots.

Isn't that beautiful?! Red Cabbage is very differant from Saurerkraut, so if you have an aversion to saurerkraut, you need to put all that behind you and give this a try. It compliments the Sauerbraten perfectly. I have made it from scratch....but I is much easier and taste comparable to Aunt Nellie's so I pop open a jar and warm it in the microwave. If you can't find Aunt Nellie's, in the canned vegetables aisle, then look in the International section of your grocery store. It would be with the German or Dutch food products.


Butter Spiced Carrots (print recipe) are something my kids love and also go well with this meal. Very easy. I happened to have a parsnip so I cut that up this time too. Usually I just do carrots. Boil carrots in a 1/2 inch of water, for 10 minutes, watch carefully so the pan doesn't go dry. Pour off any excess water and toss in 2 tablespoons of butter toss it around add 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, salt and pepper and a dash or three of ground ginger. Super easy beautiful side dish.

Tomorrow we cook the Sauerbraten!

Mac and Cheese

No pun intended. We have all been trying to get used to our new computer. Going from a PC to a Mac has been a tiny learning curve, but really nothing tooo crazy. Except my oldest son thought this new computer was going to be his saviour our something. Last night he threw a hissy fit (please tell me your 13 year old sons throws hissy fits) because his Ipod wouldn't sync. EEE-gads child! Just because we have a new computer, unfortunately that does not fix our internet dilemma. Which I am working on.....kinda...oh I can be a procrastinator. It is not something I like to admit but.....well I just did. SO now it's out there. I on the other hand I am pretty much loving the Mac. So that's all that really matters.......

When mom is happy the whole family is happy. Or should be.

Macaroni with cheese makes me quite happy too! So I thought I would share my borderline criminally cheesy mac and cheese recipe with you. Yes criminally....as in should be outlawed it's so cheesy and sometimes I even add more cheese.

MAC-N-CHEESE

printable recipe

1 stick of butter

1/2 cup flour

1 clove of garlic finely minced

3 cups milk

3 cups sharp cheddar cheese shredded

1 cup of pepper jack cheese shredded

1 cup ricotta cheese

1 cup of Gruyere cheese shredded

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt **taste your cheese sauce before adding, it may not need salt

1/2- 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1 cup of crushed cheddar jack Cheez-its

1 box of Cellentani or Cavaltoppi noodles (any noodle that is curly with a good ridge on it to hang on to all that ooey-gooey cheese)

preheat oven to 375

1. boil noodles in salted water until al dente. DO NOT OVER COOK! Noodles should be firm to the bite.

2. Melt butter in a 6 quart sauce pan. Add garlic and saute for 1 minute.

3. Add flour and whisk into butter let it get all bubbly and start to brown then add milk gradually whisk well as you add. It will get thick, but you don't want it too thick. If it gets too thick add more milk a 1/4 cup at a time until it is about at thick as syrup, you want it to coat the back of a spoon.

4 Remove from heat and add your dry mustard and ground pepper, now add your cheese. You don't want to wait, because you want the sauce hot so it will melt the cheese. If the cheese does not completely melt that's OK it will in the oven.

Now stick your finger in the cheese sauce....get a big glob on your pointer finger and TASTE. Does it need salt? If yes then salt it 1/2 teaspoon at a time. Be careful not to over salt. Cheese sauce will now be quite thick and gooey.

5. Add noodles to the cheese sauce and fold them in.

6. Butter a 9x 13 baking dish generously. Or you can Pam it if you are into her.

Spread your criminally cheesy mac-n-cheese into the pan. Sprinkle the Cheez-its on top.

7. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until bubbly and yummy looking!

There you have it! I took pictures. BUT I could not find them. I searched for....oh a half an hour! Then I had a hissy fit like my son. Where could they be in I photo. They have to be there somewhere! I am sure it is user error.

Oh well!

I did find these photos......

My baby as Tina Turner in the school lip-sync. She sang Proud Mary. It was a scream. The video didn't turn out or she would be famous on YouTube right now.

Oh my! And this would be my seestor. And the man? Well we are not sure...this was the week before she got married and he showed up at her bachelorette party wanting her to leave Skidder and come back to him. He said he still loved her and was very sorry. Apparently she thought this was hilarious. She obviously laughed him off and married Skidder. Thank the Lord.

Look-E-here. This was in my creative birthday party days. My third son had a Scooby Doo party and I made the Mystery Machine out of a refrigerator box that Lowes gave me. WOW those days are over. Who was that mom? These days its bowling and cupcakes......sorry kids, mom spent her creativity on the Mystery Machine 5 years ago.

Donkey boy. He cried his eyes out when I made him wear this costume, for manger day at preschool. Once we arrived at preschool and he saw he wasn't the only donkey boy....he was fine and forgave me and is not scarred for life of anything. In case you were worried for him. (FYI Manger Day is the much anticipated day the kids get to dress like a animal or person from the manger scene.) Hey his sister was a chicken the year she did it. Was there a chicken at Christs birth? I bet there was, she just didn't get in any of the nativity scenes because she was squawking around and being a nuisance.

So aren't you glad that I couldn't find my Mac-n-Cheese pics? Now you know SO much more about me and my family.

We will be cheering my sons team on in the Irish Cup Soccer Tournament this weekend in South Bend, Indiana! If you know of any good family friendly places to eat in South Bend....Hey let me know....much appreciated! Go Georgetown Rangers!!!!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

LuvYa!