No Time to Cook?!?

Gone are the days of lingering in the kitchen trying out new, complex recipes.  At least on the week nights that is.  My 10 month old is ruling the roost around dinner time {and, well, pretty much all the time now}!  With Brooks constantly on the move in his little Cosco walker, full speed ahead into the cat's water bowl, pulling down kitchen hand towels within his little reach, running over mine and Dylan's feet in a take no prisoner's sort of way, dinner has been put on the back-burner...literally!  While I was making this, I pondered exactly how long it had been since I actually diced an onion.  Could not remember! Yikes.  I actually did not enjoy how long it took just to dice the dadgum thing.  I now understand why they have those little prepackaged diced veggies in the produce section!  They are for tired mommies.  Genius.

So, as we've moved from 9 to 10 months in our wild child's life, onto full on crawling with glimpses of walking on his own in the near future, we will continue doing quick dinners it seems. However, we can still make them taste good and maybe even a little healthy on some nights.  Well, one night soon maybe?  Hopefully? Anyway.  This night isn't one of the healthy nights but it IS a taste good night.  Enter: pasta! 

Quick recipe:

Package of Buitoni Chicken and Prosciutto Tortelloni
Jar of Bertolli Vodka Sauce
1 Can Diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles
1 Green Bell Pepper diced
1/2 Onion diced
2 Tbsp olive oil {and a dash for boiling the noodles}
Splash of heavy cream
Pinch {or two if you like to live on the edge}of red pepper/cayenne

 

 

While the noodles boiled, I begrudgingly quickly diced the veggies and sauteed them in a skillet with olive oil, a little salt, and the red pepper.  Then, I transfered the veggies to a larger pan, added in the canned tomatoes and chiles {drained}, and the Bertolli sauce {the whole jar} and a splash of heavy cream.  That mixture just heated for a few minutes on medium low heat to meld the flavors together. 

Then, I folded in the noodles gently so as not to break them.  And voila.  There you have it.  The simplest meal on the planet in a pinch!  Not the best iphone pic of this but you get the gist.

Though this obviously is not one of my finest meals to date, as I've said before, the most important thing to us is sitting down together at dinner.  So no matter what we eat...takeout, cardboard frozen meals, pb&j's, at least we'll be together doing it.  The best conversations happen around the dinner table!  But really, who can beat pasta?! It's actually pretty yummy!  Sometimes the simplest things are, afterall.

I'll continue to work on some more reeeeally simple weeknight suppers.  Lately, I've been feeling the urge to eat healthy and lose these last pesky pounds from my pregnancy so I'm on a mission to find low fat, low cal recipes now. : )  I'll report back soon!