Spinach Cheese Tortellini with Italian Cream Sauce

Lately I've had zero ideas for weekly dinners, so where else do I turn but Pinterest?? I found a crock pot recipe on Pinterest (original recipe here ) and it sounded pretty tasty, but it needed some more stuff in it in my opinion. And I don't particularly care for frozen pasta items, so I knew I would use the refrigerated tortellini instead. Obviously if you cook refrigerated tortellini for 6 hours in a crock pot, they would become mush. So I turned this into a stove top recipe, added more veggies to help get those in, and used the refrigerated pasta. This makes a LOT!! I will probably be eating leftovers for a week by myself. :-p But it was tasty! Below is my recipe; it will certainly be going into my family cookbook!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb sweet Italian sausage
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 (10 oz) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 2 cans Italian style diced tomatoes, drained
• 4-5 cups chicken broth
• 1 (8 oz) block reduced fat cream cheese, cut into chunks
• salt to taste
• 2 (9 oz) packages refrigerated Spinach Cheese Tortellini

Directions:

1. In a large stock pot, brown Italian sausage. If in links, remove from casings and crumble. Do not drain.
2. Add onions, garlic, spinach, and mushrooms to the pot; sauté until tender.
3. Add tomatoes, chicken broth, cream cheese, and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 15-20 minutes for flavors to blend, stirring occasionally until cream cheese is fully melted.
4. Add tortellini and cook for the amount of time indicated on packages directions, usually about 7-9 minutes, or until fully cooked.
5. Ladle into bowls and serve with shredded parmesan cheese. 

Notes:

If you like the sauce a little thinner, add more chicken broth, otherwise about 4 cups will be good. If you want more volume of thicker consistency sauce, add an additional 1/4 block of cream cheese per additional cup of chicken broth.

If you decide to give it a try, let me know what you think! Happy cooking! :-)