Magazine Recipe: Tortellini with Eggplant & Peppers

From Real Simple Magazine.

Occasionally I’m at the grocery store and I see one of those frozen packages of ravioli or tortellini and I think “that would make a quick and easy meal”. Then I mix it with regular ol’ pasta sauce and it’s eh, okay. But alas! I have found something you can do with that boring old bag of frozen tortellini sitting at the back of your freezer!

Get together these:

Olive oil

4 medium eggplants, cut into 1/2” pieces (why don’t they just say “bite sized pieces”?)

3 bell peppers, whatever colors you like, chopped up however thick you like

Because it is from the Real Simple magazine, you will want to add salt & pepper, of course

6 cloves of garlic, because no matter what the recipe calls for, I always up the amount of garlic, minced

¼ t red pepper flakes (or I would do a couple of shakes rather than try to measure it)

3 cups vegetable broth. I have those little boullion cubes, and I heat them up w/ 3 cups of water to make the broth. And if you have an open container of free range chicken broth in the fridge, you might as well use it up before it goes bad. I think you basically just want to use something w/ more flavor than water here.

1 pound package of frozen cheese tortellini

½ c fresh basil (the original recipe called for parsley, so use that if it sounds better to you. It just seems to me that basil+pasta=yum.

½ c grated asiago cheese, or however much you want.

Take out a large skillet. I use a wok, that was sold as a wok because it has that shape, but really it’s just a large pan. Whatever, I use it for almost everything. I bought it at Sunrise Asian Grocery in Eugene, Oregon. That place is awesome, it used to be the post office.

Heat the oil in the pan over med-hi heat. Add the eggplant, bell peppers, salt & pepper. Stir occasionally, the vegetables should begin to soften, around 8 minutes.

Add the garlic and pepper flakes and cook for another 1-2 minutes.

Add the broth & tortellini. Cover & simmer over medium heat, stir it occasionally, about 12-15 minutes. Add the basil (or parsley) and ½ of the asiago. Stir it up well, then dish it into bowls & sprinkle with more asiago.

This is an easy one pot meal, which means not much clean up! Goes good w/ homemade bread or a good crusty artisan bread.