Tortellini Soup - Easy

I subscribe to approximately 130 blogs, most of the recipe persuasion.  In order to prevent my Great Search for the Great Recipe taking up 120% of my free time, I read them all through an RSS reader.

RSS reader?  Hey, Dena, talk English at me!

Okay, Dear Reader.  What RSS reader means, in English, is that I sest up a webpage, personalized with just blogs I subscribe to, aligned in a neat list.  But the really neat thing about an RSS reader is that blogs with updates stand out in bold font.  This way, I don't have to personally visit each and every blog to find out if I read it already.  If it's in bold, there is a new post (or two) that I haven't read yet.  In fact, I don't even have to visit the blog to read it!  I just click on the bolded blog name, then on the emboldened post title and the post opens up right at that exact spot.  No jumping to a new page and wasting all those nanoseconds waiting for the new page to open and display.  Woo-hoo!

I use Google's reader, but there are others around as well.  Check one of them out if you visit a pile of sites every day or two.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that while skimming my Reader the other day, I noticed there was a new post waiting for me from Gina's Skinny Recipes.  Turned out to be a recipe for soup with spinach cheese tortellini.  Since I happen to like soup, I checked out the recipe and thought it would make for a nice easy dairy lunch.  I just happened to have a package of tri-color tortellini in my freezer waiting for me to do something with it.  And because I wanted a dairy version, veggie broth subbed for the chicken broth, although you could easily use vegan chicken broth in its place.

All in all, with some leftover french bread rolls I had hidden stashed in the freezer, it made a nice fast and easy weekday lunch.

Tortellini Soup
adapted from Gina's Skinny Recipes
Servings: 8

1 Tbl. butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced (bottled okay)
8 cups low-sodium vegetable (or vegan chicken) broth
2 cups water
1 Parmesan or Parmigiano Reggiano Rind (approx. 2 inches long, optional)
1 lb. pkg. cheese tortellini (regular, tri-color or all spinach)
1/2 tsp. coarsely ground pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 cups loosely packed baby spinach
salt to taste
Parmesan or Parmigiano Reggiano, grated

In a large pot, melt butter over medium-high heat. When melted, add the  onion and carrot. Cover and reduce heat to low.  Cook for approximately 8-10 minutes until vegetables begin to soften.

Uncover and add garlic.  Increase heat to medium-high and stir for another minute to cook harshness out of garlic.

Add broth, water and cheese rind; bring to a boil. When boiling, add pepper, nutmeg and tortellini. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until tortellini cooks according to package directions, about 8 minutes.

Fish out and discard cheese rind. Eat Toss that tortellini that came along for the ride back into the broth.

Remove from heat and stir in baby spinach. Taste and add salt, if necessary.

Ladle soup into bowls.  Garnish with freshly grated cheese, if desired (I didn't).  Serve hot with italian or french bread or roll.