Cooking Mommy: Easy Cheesy Tortellini

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Easy Cheesy Tortellini

Made this last night and it was delicious and a big hit in our house. Tortellini is one my favorite pastas. Cheese filled little pastas, 2 of my favorite foods combined. :-) I made this similar to my two timin pasta since that is such a big hit in my house. I found the original recipe, which I modifed, on allrecipes.com. I will definitely be making this again. It's so easy. I did lighten it up since I'm on a diet by using 1/2 the amount of mozzarella it called for and light alfredo.

Ingredients
2 - 19oz frozen packages of tortellini
24oz Spaghetti sauce (I used Ragu traditional)
1 jar light afredo sauce (I used Classico), watch for egg-free if needed
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp onion powder
4oz Mozzarella, shredded
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil your tortellini until they all float to the top (which I found is a lot longer than the package says), drain and return to pot. Add all ingredients together to the tortellini and mix well. Pour into sprayed 9x13 dish and bake 20-30 minutes.

Weight Watcher Points: depending on your sauce, 1/12 of the pan is 6 points.

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Allergies and Intolerances

My son, Daniel previously had allergies to egg whites and peanuts. I am lactose intolerant. My nephews have allergies to many foods. I will try my best to label things to help those with allergies since I know it's difficult finding recipes sometimes when someone in your home has common food allergies. Make sure you check labels yourself. If it's marked soy-free or nut-free, it only means it doesn't have the soy or nut protein in it, not necessarily the oils. Look for dairy-free, egg-free, gluten/wheat-free, nut-free, and soy-free labels.

Egg replacements

If you need an egg free recipe, I have some great egg replacements. Now these really won't work in recipes that require a lot of eggs, like a meringue or cheesecake, but they do work well in most recipes I've ever tried.

Egg replacement #1: use 1 Tbsp ground flax seed and 3 Tbsp of water in place of 1 egg. Why this works? I don't know, but flax seed is extremely healthy for you, full of lots of omega fatty acids, so this is my preferred substitute.

Egg replacement #2: Boil 1 cup of water and 1 packet of unflavored gelatin together. In it's liquid state, use 3 1/2 Tbsp of this in place of 1 egg.

I have found sometimes one works better than the other. The flax seed seems to work better overall, I believe, but my mother-in-law made Christmas cookies with the gelatin and you couldn't even tell the difference.