Festive Fall Tortellini Toss

Brandon golfed on Saturday and came home pleased with himself, which is the desired outcome of golf. The week was a fall week, the kind where the light through the kitchen window arrives at a particular angle and the freezer hums in a different register depending on the temperature in the garage. I made notes in my prep notebook on Sunday afternoon, the way I always do: meal name, ingredient list, cost per serving, prep time, freezer instructions. Twenty-eight bags. Two hours and eleven minutes. A little slow this week, by my standards, but Brandon was helping and the conversation was good, and I have learned, slowly and against my own grain, that the conversation is sometimes the point and the time is sometimes a courtesy I extend to my husband for being willing to chop onions on a Sunday afternoon.

The children are doing what they do, which is the central report of every week of my adult life. Ethan is 21, in Manila on his mission, and his last email mentioned a chicken adobo so good he is going to make me make it when he comes home. Olivia is 19, at BYU studying elementary education — the path she chose at age seven and has not deviated from once. Mason, 16, is in Brazil on his mission. His weekly emails are short and full of jokes. He does not write much about the work. He writes about the food. Lily is 15, in high school, asking the kind of questions in Sunday School that make the teachers uncomfortable, which I find difficult and also, secretly, admirable. Noah is 12, the comedian, the performer — the kid who does an impression of my disappointed face in front of company, and gets away with it. That is the family report. I do not have a system for these reports. I just listen and remember and call back when I said I would call back, which is most of the time and not all of the time, and the difference between most and all is the territory of motherhood.

I do not preach in this blog. I never have. My faith is in here the way air is in a room — invisible, essential, not discussed. I am still a Latter-day Saint. I am also a woman who has sat in front of a casket the size of a bread box. I do not see those two things as contradictions, but I do not pretend they sit easily together either. The bench in the chapel where I sit on Sunday is the same bench. The woman is not. The faith makes room for the woman. That is what I have learned to ask of it.

The recipe of the week was funeral potatoes, which I have made some specific number of times in my life and have refined to a system that I now hand to other people in printed form. The version I made this week fed eight, cost under fifteen dollars, and required twenty-six minutes of active prep, which is within my requirements and not a coincidence. I taught a freezer meal class this week and someone cried at the cost-per-serving column on the handout. I took the cry as a compliment. I have stopped explaining the freezer-meal philosophy to people who already follow my work, and I have stopped apologizing for it to people who do not. The philosophy is simple: tomorrow is coming whether you are ready or not. You can either be ready or not. I pick ready.

The week ends the way most of them do — with a labeled bag, a tomorrow, a kitchen light I leave on for no one in particular, and a quiet that holds.

The tortellini made the prep list this week because it is one of those recipes that behaves the way a good freezer meal should — it holds, it reheats clean, and it does not require an explanation. Brandon was at the cutting board and the fall light was doing its particular thing through the kitchen window, and I thought: this is the right week for this one. It is a recipe I hand out in class and keep in the rotation for exactly these Sundays, the ones where the conversation runs long and the bags still get labeled and tomorrow is still coming either way.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 packages (9 oz each) refrigerated cheese tortellini
1 lb Italian sausage, casings removed
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes with Italian seasoning, undrained
1 can (15 oz) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups fresh baby spinach
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Salt and black pepper to taste
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese, for serving

Instructions

Brown the sausage. In a large deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat, cook the Italian sausage, breaking it into crumbles, until no longer pink, about 6–8 minutes. Drain excess fat, leaving about 1 teaspoon in the pan.
Soften the aromatics. Add the diced onion to the skillet and cook over medium heat until softened, about 4 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook 1 minute more, until fragrant.
Build the sauce. Add the diced tomatoes (with liquid), chicken broth, cannellini beans, basil, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Stir to combine and bring to a gentle simmer.
Cook the tortellini. Add the tortellini directly to the skillet. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat for 8–10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the tortellini are tender and have absorbed some of the broth.
Add the spinach. Stir in the baby spinach and cook uncovered for 1–2 minutes, just until wilted. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with shredded Parmesan. Serve immediately, or cool completely before transferring to labeled freezer bags in 2-cup portions.

Nutrition (per serving)

Festive Fall Tortellini Toss — The Week the Conversation Was the Point