Pasta Meal!

Well, tonight it was Pasta Night and we had cheese tortellini with vodka sauce, steamed broccolini with garlic butter sauce, leftover mushroom chicken and a pizza roll with garlic compound butter (also used the compound butter for broccolini). The Vodka sauce makes a lot of sauce!!! You may have some extra. And it is spicy! Decrease red pepper flakes if you like it mild.

Cheese Tortellini with Vodka Sauce

Cheese Tortellini (we used Costco, not sure how much---3 cups or so)

Vodka Sauce: looked at a bunch of recipes and made this one up from what I liked from each

1/2 C Vodka

1 T red pepper flakes

**Soak red pepper flakes in vodka for 1 hour

2T Fresh Basil, chiffonade

2 T EVOO

2 cloves garlic, minced (more if you like it really garlicky)

1 lg can crushed tomatoes (28oz I think)

1 T tomato paste (I use the tube)

1 C heavy cream

1 C romano cheese, grated very fine

1/2 stick of butter, cut into cubes

Saute EVOO and garlic for about a minute or so, be careful not to burn garlic. Add tomatoes, tomato paste and vodka/pepper mixture from above. Simmer for about 30 minutes. Add cheese, cream and butter. Cook on low 10 more minutes or so (make sure all butter is melted). Serve over pasta with fresh basil

Garlic Compound Butter (from http://www.allrecipes.com/ )

1 cup butter, softened
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground paprika

In a small bowl, combine softened butter, minced garlic and parmesan cheese. Season with garlic salt, Italian seasoning, pepper and paprika. Mix until smooth. Place in wax paper and roll up so it is a long roll of butter and then refrigerate. It makes it easy to slice little pieces off.

Pizza Rolls (I cheated on this one)

1 can pizza dough (Pillsbury)

Olive Oil

Sea Salt

Roll out dough and cut with pizza cutter into squares and roll into balls (doesnt have to be perfect) and then place on greased cookie sheet and spray with olive oil (I have a mister) and sprinkle a little sea salt on them. Bake for about 15-18 minutes on 400 degrees. These are so great!!