worth the whisk

new comfort foods

My kitchen cupboard standbys:

canned artichoke hearts, canned diced tomatoes

Maybe to most people these are not strange things to have in your cupboard or pantry but to me, they are not things I grew up with and I’ve only come to lean upon them in recent years.  I recently found a great deal on an 8 pack of petite diced tomatoes at bjs (later to discover that half the pack is flavored with garclic & olive oil, but it’s not bad).  Artichoke hearts I stock up on whenever they go on sale.  Often they are $3 - $4 per can and when they go on sale they’re usually discounted by $1 or more so it’s a good sale.  I don’t buy the marinated ones because they’re sitting in oil and it makes them so much worse for you.

I love these ingredients for those nights where you want some pasta but you don’t want spaghetti & ragu traditional like you had on Monday. 

When I am having a lazy-pasta night, I boil up some penne (or whatever) and after I drain it I dump the can of tomatoes in the pot, then I halve/quarter & roughly chop up about 2/3 of a can of artichoke hearts and throw those in too.  Even better if I’ve got some leftover feta on hand, I throw half of it in (crumbled) to warm up, then mix in the pasta, then I divide the rest of the feta and sprinkle it on top after I’ve plated it.

Another standby, which I haven’t made for a month or so, came into my life about a year and a half ago.  I found a weight watchers recipe for tortellini soup.  Fascinated by the fact that I could make a delicious soup in 10 minutes I have played with the recipe and made it often enough that I don’t need directions and I feel free to mess with it.  This brings me to my other kitchen standbys …

dry tortellini, chicken broth, diced garlic in a jar, and frozen spinach.

To make the tortellini soup …

Heat up about a tablespoon of the jarred garlic (or a few cloves, diced) and a tablespoon of olive oil.  Slowly add in chicken broth while stirring.  I buy one of the 32 oz large-juice-box style containers of 99% fat free low sodium chicken broth.  I’ve found that I prefer Swanson over the other brand my (tiny) store carries.

Next I add in dry tortellini.  I like the Barilla three cheese or cheese & garlic variety.  Again, I usually have what’s on sale in my cuboard.  Sometimes it’s the family size, sometimes it’s the smaller size.  If it’s the smaller size I sometimes put in 2/3 of it, sometimes all of it.  If it’s the larger size, about half, maybe a little more.

Cover & let it boil 5 minutes.  Then remove the cover and add in a can (14.5 oz) of diced tomatoes.  Then add in about half of a frozen 10 oz package of spinach (thawed, some of the liquid squeezed out).  For this soup I have found that I prefer the regular size diced tomatoes, the petite diced make it to “tomatoey”.

Let it cook without the lid for another 5 minutes, then serve it up with some parmesean and some warm crusty bread.

I have another recipe that uses those canned tomatoes, and one to make the day after the tortellini soup to use up that spinach, which I’ll post later!