Saturday, September 24, 2011

What's for supper? Tortellini salad, and turkey

Tonight's menu, which I am anticipating is going to be Really Good:

Crockpotted turkey breast (found on sale this morning at the supermarket, and dropped into the slow cooker as soon as we got home at noon)
Reheated sweet potatoes
Tortellini Salad, with variations (see below)
Pop-out-of-the-tube crescent rolls, which are a big treat around here

I bought a small package of refrigerated tortellini at the supermarket, and thought it was about the right size for a salad.  But the first tortellini recipe I found (in a lunch cookbook) didn't have any dressing on it at all, just salt and pepper. I think it was intended to appeal to kids, but it didn't sound very exciting.  This one at AllRecipes.com fit pretty much with what we had in the fridge, and sounded tastier, so that's what we're having.

Here are the ingredients as given, with my changes and notes.

1 (16 ounce) package refrigerated cheese tortellini:  I bought an 190 g package of tri-colour tortellini, which works out to about 7 ounces.  I honestly think 7 or 8 ounces is about the right size, though, to balance the amount of other ingredients and the dressing.  Otherwise you would have a huge bowl of tortellini and not much else.  Note:  this salad was really good with tortellini, but I think it would also be fine with non-stuffed pasta--maybe tri-colour fusilli.  Then you could use more cheese--see our note below about that.

4 ounces sliced pepperoni, quartered:  check. (Thank you, Mr. Fixit--pepperoni wasn't even on the grocery list, and he just happened to get some)

2 green onions, sliced:  left these out, they make Mr. Fixit sick.

1 (2.25 ounce) can sliced black olives:  our can was bigger, so I weighed out a couple of ounces.

1 (6.5 ounce) jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped:  substituted chopped red pepper

6 ounces mozzarella cheese, diced:  I substituted a small (5 oz.) bag of crumbled feta, since that's what we had and because I wasn't using the artichoke hearts or green onions--I figured a zippier cheese wouldn't hurt. (NOTE:  After eating this, The Apprentice and I agreed that it would probably be fine with about half that amount of cheese--particularly with the cheese-filled tortellini.)

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 1/2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar  I think we used the last of it to clean out the teakettle, so I used cider vinegar

1 teaspoon dried Italian herb seasoning:  I used dried basil and oregano instead

salt and black pepper to taste

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