Tortillini and Cheese

Taken with my Smartphone… Not the best Pic!

My husband and I came home from long day of looking for a freezer. Neither one of us were in the mood for anything from a drive through nor we both felt too tired to deal with going to a restaurant. We were both craving Italian food, but without having to go out.

I remember that I had a bag of frozen tortellini in the freezer awaiting our arrival, but no sauce. I decided to make a simple cheddar cheese sauce then kick it up with a few spices. The tortellini turned out fantastic. It made me realize once again that there is no need to buy things in jar and cans when something quick, easy and homemade taste so much better! This sauce would be great on just about anything… like steamed veggies.

Ingredients:

2 pounds of dry or frozen tortellini (cooked according to the packaging)
2 cups milk
1 cup cheddar cheese
¼ cup butter
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon of onion powder
½ teaspoon dried parsley

Directions:

*Note: I find when making a cheese sauce that having everything measured out and ready to add to your pot immediately is the key to making sure this turns out correctly. You need to have everything ready to go when you need it. You won’t necessarily having time to start measuring or you might end up with more lumps in your cheese sauce than sauce.*

Place your burner on medium and begin to melt the butter in saucepan, and gradually start adding flour using a whisk to mix everything together. Be patient and go slow with this process.
When your flour butter combination starts getting thick slowly start adding milk and whisking at the same time. Stay patient! If it starts lumping up don’t panic just keep whisking it should start coming together. Go slowly while adding the milk
As it starts to thicken up keep whisking and add the spices while doing so. DO NOT allow your cheese sauce to come to a boil at any point because once you add your cheese the oils in the cheese and the milk will start separating you don’t want that or the recipe will be ruined.
Stir in the cheddar cheese and continue mixing with the whisk. Heat until cheese melts and sauce the sauce becomes a smooth consistency. **if you find your cheese sauce to be lumpy you can slowly pour it into a blender and run it for a few seconds. This will remove all of your lumps. If you don’t have a glass blender you will need your cheese sauce to cool a bit before pouring it in the plastic blender.**
Add tortellini to the cheese sauce and heat through.

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