Three Cheese Tortellini with Chicken Broth

Oh, what a busy, busy December huh? Between the shopping, cooking, wrapping presents, going to or hosting parties, visiting families....Is that why I am down with a cold?  Pushed my myself too much I guess.  I've been so occupied that I didn't even have the time to post my own personal fun things I made this month outside of my Allrecipes.com Allstar Ambassadors Sponsored recipes....so without further ado....
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah or Happy Festivus! LOL. So, This month I choose two recipes from:

Personally, I felt the choices were a bit "out of the ordinary" for boxed pasta campaign.  There was duck, buffalo, pork ribs and carrot puree in a mac and cheese...I guess these poor companies can't make the home cooks happy.  Too boring or too weird for recipe choices, right?  I have to pick recipes that is going to be eaten and hopefully enjoyed!  No worries, I found some, we had a lot to choose from, I just thought some of the recipe ingredients were "out there"....I am sure some creative cooks were lovin' it.  For my first recipe I selected:

Three Cheese Tortellini with Chicken Broth
 Recipe on Allrecipes.com sponsored and by Barilla

• 1 (12 ounce) package Barilla® Three Cheese Tortellini
• 5 cups chicken broth
• 1/3 cup shredded Parmigiano cheese
• 1/2 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley

1.

Bring broth to boil. Add tortellini and simmer for 10 minutes.

2.

Serve in individual bowls topped with Parmigiano cheese; garnish with parsley.

Easy Peasy!
Before I did this recipe I did read the reviews.  Many commented on how bland it was.  You cooked the tortellini in chicken broth. Threw in some parsley and parm.  How jazzy can it taste with four ingredients?  Here's what I did to bump it up...

Cook's Notes:
1. I used the spinach and ricotta filled tortellini instead of the 3 cheese.
2.  I used Chicken Stock instead of broth.
3.  I tasted the finished product....ugh, bland.
3.  I added 1/4 tsp garlic powder and 1/4 tsp. onion powder.  Definitely better!
4. Add chopped BASIL instead of parsley.  BANG. Delicious!
5.  Shredded fresh parmesan cheese instead of the green canned parmesan......oooey gooey, melty cheese.
6. Served to K-man, he raved.  He is normally making his own lunch from a canned soup when I am not around but when he ate this that I left behind, he was really impressed and wanted to know what new canned soup I discovered.  Of course this wasn't canned...I made it, that is why it tasted so good.
7.  If you follow this recipe as Barilla listed, please tweak it as I did.....who wants to go through the effort of making a soup for it to be bland? Always taste as you cook!

 #AllstarsBarilla

Tune in tomorrow for Gluten-Free Elbows with Mixed Mushrooms and Sausage Soup!

Enjoy!