Recipe of the Week

Cooking is one of my favorite things to do. It relaxes, fulfills and brings me great joy. I often experiment, which can sometimes be a scary thing and sometimes a wonderful thing. Regardless, I am lucky enough to have a tolerant husband who is willing to eat whatever's placed in front of him (thank you Mama Susie)! Last night I made this dish for the third or fourth time. My brother made an incredible pasta dish for me a while back, simliar to this, which I've kinda worked from to create this one. So I suppose I can't take complete credit, but enough that I'm going to call this my own. I've decided I'm going to start posting a "Recipe of the Week", and not just any recipe, but one that I've created myself. That's the goal anyway - until I run out of ideas! We'll see how long this lasts.

Chicken and Sausage Tortellini
Serves: 6
Start to Finish: 30 minutes (approx.)
Goes well with: salad and bread

Ingredients:
3 hot italian sausage links, sliced or ground (whichever you prefer)
2 chicken breasts (thinly sliced)
1 jar Classico Sun-dried Tomato Alfredo
1 cup milk or half & half
1 T. butter
1 quart-sized ziploc bag
1 16oz. package Cheese Tortellini
3 green onions, thinly sliced
½ red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
½ serrano pepper, coarsely chopped (only if you like spicy)
2 T. fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
2 T. fresh basil (or 1 t. dried basil)
1 t. garlic powder
½ t. cayenne pepper
Parmesan cheese and crushed red pepper

Directions:
1) Cook sausage over medium heat approximately 8-10 minutes until cooked through. Remove sausage from pan and set aside, but do not remove grease from pan.
2) Combine chicken, onion, peppers, parsley, basil, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper in ziploc bag and shake until chicken is well-coated. While pan is still hot, add butter to sausage grease. Once melted, add contents of ziploc bag to pan. Heat until chicken is cooked through, approximately 3-4 minutes.
3) In a bowl, combine Alfredo sauce and milk. Stir until consistency is smooth. I always pour the sauce in the bowl first, then add some of the milk to the empty jar, tighten the lid, then shake it and pour it into the bowl with the rest of the milk. That way you don’t waste any of the sauce.
4) Pour sauce into pan. Stir, cover, and turn to low heat.
5) Follow instructions according to the back of Tortellini package. Once cooked through, pour into pan of sauce, mix, and that’s it! Garnish (I love that word) with Parmesan cheese and crushed red pepper.

*Other variations of this dish, which I've tried and liked: shrimp instead of chicken, and angel hair pasta instead of tortellini.

The picture doesn’t quite resemble a Food Network gourmet dish, but it does taste quite good. Chloe devoured it. Try it out and let me know what you think!