Tempting Tortellini

I love to cook and quite often I watch the Food Network too get ideas for different things to eat. I hate eating the same old thing all the time so I like to try new things. Yesterday I was watching that Italian gal, Giada De Laurentiis and she was fixing One Pot meals. One of them was cheese tortellini. Well I thought it sounded good so I went to the store and bought all the ingriedents went home to try it out. One slight problem...our store didn't carry the Mascarpone cheese that her recipe called for so I "winged" it and combined parts of her recipe and part of the recipe on the back of the cheese tortellini that I bought.

Here is Giada's recipe:

Olive oil

2 cups marinara sauce
1/3 cup mascarpone cheese

1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme leaves

1 pound purchased cheese tortellini

2 ounces thinly sliced smoked mozzarella

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil an 8 by 8 by 2-inch baking dish.
Whisk the sauce, mascarpone cheese, parsley and thyme in a large bowl to blend. Cook the tortellini in a large pot of boiling salted water until just tender, about 2 minutes. Drain. Add the tortellini to the sauce and toss to coat. Transfer the tortellini mixture to the prepared baking dish. Top the mixture with the smoked mozzarella and Parmesan. Cover and bake until the sauce bubbles and the cheeses on top melt, about 30 minutes.

This is what I did to alter it: I cooked up 1/2 Ground Beef with a Cup of chopped onion and 1/2 fresh sliced mushrooms and added that to my Marinara sauce. I also left out the fresh chopped herbs since I forgot to buy them. I think my recipe turned out pretty tasty although I might try adding something like cream cheese next time to give it a little smoother flavor.

Enjoy!