Sausage & Cheese Tortellini Soup

A few days ago my friend Natasha posted a recipe for her delicious Sausage & Cheese Tortellini Soup. I've taken her up on her recipe recommendations in the past and been soooo happy that I immediately scheduled this one into our meal plan. This one pot soup was so good I had to re-share it too! All credit goes to Natasha!

Wait! Natasha's dish is more yellow and mine is red..?

 

So, I did adapt the recipe a smidge by adding in some additional ingredients. I'm always trying to hide veggies in Caroline's meals so I dumped a whole bag of spinach into the pot and also added a ton of tomatoes. This meal also fed 3 of us twice, only dirtied one pot and was super quick and easy to throw together. And my recipe critics gave it two thumbs up. So add these ingredients to your next grocery list!

Sausage & Cheese Tortellini Soup

Ingredients:
3 cups cooked sausage
3 cups frozen tortellini

3 cups water

1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes

1 16 oz can Italian diced tomatoes, semi drained
1 can evaporated milk
6 chicken bouillon cubes

1 10 oz bag fresh spinach
1 tbsp. oregano
1 tbsp. parsley
1 tbsp. chives
salt & pepper to taste

Parmesan cheese

*for the locals, I highly recommend using Neese's sausage. SO GOOD!

Directions

In a large pot, add all ingredients except tortellini and spinach and bring to boil. Slightly reduce temperature and allow to simmer about 15 minutes.  Add tortellini and bring to boil for several minutes. Stir in spinach. Sprinkle with freshly grated cheese and serve.

Print recipe for Sausage & Cheese Tortellini Soup.

And a little behind the scenes look with my trusty taste tester and second shooter, Caroline...

For her hard work she got the first bowl. It was still piping hot so I dumped it into her cool-it bowl and voila - dinner was served and we had one very happy, full toddler!

A Pedicure Party Baby Shower!

On Saturday 17 ladies gathered together to shower our friend Laura. It truly was the most perfect day. Baby boy James Ryland is going to be here next month just a few days after Valentine's Day and everyone is beyond excited!

 

When a group of us began planning Laura's shower a few months ago we really wanted to celebrate the mama-to-be in a fun way. So instead of gathering at someone's house for an afternoon of appetizers, cake and presents, we tried to think outside the box and came up with the best idea ever - a pedicure party followed by a delicious lunch. 

The celebrations began at Cachet Nail Boutique, a fabulous nail salon that could accommodate 17 of us for pedicures. The ambiance, pedicure menu and service made this salon the perfect place for a pedicure party. As the girls arrived we served mimosas and mingled a bit.

The salon was so beautiful. I thought I'd miss the standard massage chair but I actually preferred the oversized fluffy pillow instead!

I think the biggest surprise in the pedicure experience here was how long and thorough the service was. The nail techs spent an hour on our pedicures which was such a nice treat. From the menu, I selected the "colada pedicure" which included a "buttery coconut and citrus extracts scrub with creamy soufflé coconut mask and scented massage oil." Um, it was every bit of heavenly as you would think!

A few of the ladies with the cutest mama ever!

After a morning of pampering we lunched at RuRu's Tacos & Tequila, a really fun and delicious restaurant. We selected RuRu's because Laura loooooves Mexican! This place serves fancier, lighter tacos too so we thought it would be perfect for a group of girls. And it was. 

We enjoyed pitchers of mimosas, margaritas, queso and guacamole before picking out tacos from a crazy good menu. 

 Mama-to-be & Grandma-to-be

After our yummy taco lunch we passed out cupcakes and presents to everyone. Instead of having all the girls circle the mama and watch her open 17 gifts we randomly passed a gift out to each person and took turns opening them. This made gift opening go so much quicker and was actually a lot of fun too.

For the party favors we had the cutest cookies made.

I stole this picture from Laura.

All the ladies who showered our sweet mama!

And the hostesses with mama!

Five on Friday!

It's been a wild week so let's get right down to it!

one. I want to thank everyone for the prayers for my dad this week. On Monday he had a procedure done in an attempt to remove the fluid in his lungs. The doctors were astonished that they were able to extract almost a liter of fluid! After the procedure we had a bit of a scare as dad couldn't breathe all of a sudden. Mom was rushed out of the room and a storm of medical staff rushed in and sedated him and put him on a breathing tube for the next few days. So that was scary but on Wednesday they successfully removed the tube and he is slowly getting better! They are constantly monitoring his vitals (right now he's on oxygen) but we are making progress and hope to find out the status of his lung infection soon! Again, thank you all SO much for your support and prayers. I honestly couldn't have gotten through the day without your sweet comments on my Instagram post!

two. This was my first week back in the office. On Monday morning I woke up to a sweet note from the hubs wishing me a good week back. It's been crazy at work (and home) too and doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon so you may see a dip in my blog activity. BUT, I am loving Snapchat, so you can find me there posting little unedited snippets of our life more often! Follow me at carolina_charm.

three. I have been using the heck out of my crockpot this week! It's seriously been a lifesaver! One night I made a new crockpot pork tenderloin recipe and it was soooooo yummy. The night before I threw all of the following ingredients in a ziploc bag to marinate overnight. The next morning I threw it in my crockpot for 8 hours and came home to the most tasty and tender pork that even Caroline loved.

Crockpot Pork Tenderloin Marinade: 
 1⁄2 cups olive oil
1⁄3 cup soy sauce
1⁄4 cup red wine vinegar
Juice of 1 lemon
1-2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1-2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 1-lb. pork tenderloin

Also, I've mentioned this before but it's worth bringing up again for any mamas who struggle with hungry toddler meltdowns before dinner. We quickly cool down Caroline's food using the toddler/baby food CoolIt Plate. We received another set for Christmas and are now stocked! For this crockpot dinner I literally just pulled the pork out of the crockpot and scooped it right onto the rapid cooling plate and served it to her. No tears. And she ate it. A huge victory. 

four. It's been 8 days since our trip to the ER with Thomas and he just isn't getting better. This poor little man is coughing up a storm all night still and throughout the day too. It's so bad that he vomits up anything in his stomach during a coughing spell. No fevers, thankfully, but after a week we just couldn't take it anymore so I brought him to the doctor yesterday for another checkup to rule out pneumonia, bronchitis, etc. Our doctor wasn't concerned about the cough and said it unfortunately has to run it's course but his ear infection has worsened and is now a DOUBLE ear infection. So after 8 days of amoxicillin we are tossing it in the trash and he's on a new, stronger medication. I'm hoping this works and we can all get some sleep finally!

five. Big weekend ahead! Tomorrow a group of us our showering one of our favorite mamas-to-be! I couldn't be more excited. Instead of the usual shower with appetizers, cake and present opening, we opted to reserve a nail salon for 17 of us to get pedicures, followed by lunch at a really fun restaurant together! Everyone, including mama, is really excited for a girly day! I cannot, cannot, cannot wait to shower my bestie!

We also have our first date night of the year on the books for this weekend! I am serious about our New Year's date night resolution!