A Buitoni Kind of Day.

Do you ever have one of these days? You get up early, maybe after a night of not-so-great sleep. You manage to get the kids and yourself out the door in the nick of time, and then when you finally get to start your day, it’s just one thing after another. And guess what? After work, you still have kids practices or some other errand to run, and THEN, you get the honor of making dinner. Yay. You want to give your family good food to eat, and fast food won’t cut it.

For days like this, you can have a few secret weapons in your fridge. Buitoni (warning if you’re at work: their home page has music that you can turn off--bottom right under Facebook logo) pastas and sauces can make a delicious ending to a busy day. Now, I’m all for making my own food in my kitchen. However, I haven’t yet tackled the art of making pasta. And after a day like the one I described above, who feels like starting that project at six (or later) in the evening? With a bag of frozen shrimp plus a couple other kitchen staples, a pack of Buitoni Mixed Cheese Tortellini, and a container of Buitoni Pesto with Basil, I had dinner on the table in minutes! Here’s my quick recipe for Pesto Cheese Tortellini with Shrimp and Peas. It’s got great tasting parmesan in it, which helps to thicken the sauce very nicely, as well as a nice hint of lemon. Feel free to change up the type of pasta, too.

Read through to see how you can try Buitoni pasta and sauce for free, and also enjoy a $25 Wine.com gift card, courtesy of Buitoni!

With my Wine.com gift card, I chose a light, crisp white wine to go with the tortellini pesto dish that I had in mind. It’s PRA Soave Classico from Veneto, Italy. We absolutely loved it! And with a 90 point rating (90-94 -- Outstanding; superior character and style) from The Wine Advocate, it’s well worth it’s very reasonable price of just over $15.00!

A funny side note: Renee from Flamingo Musings and I both ended up choosing the exact same wine! Out of all of the wines on Wine.com, we narrowed it down to white wine, from Italy, and chose the same one. Weird, right? Check out her recipe using Buitoni pasta and sauce, too.

Pesto Cheese Tortellini with Shrimp and Peas
serves 4

1 (20 oz) package of Buitoni Mixed Cheese Tortellini
1 bag frozen shrimp, thawed (41-60 count) or fresh if you've got them--tails removed
1/3 cup white wine
a bit of salt and fresh cracked black pepper
1 1/4 cup frozen peas (they can be thawed, but it's not necessary)
1 (7 oz) container of Buitoni Pesto with Basil
zest and juice of one smallish lemon
1/4 cup fresh grated parmesan, plus more for sprinkling over finished plates

Set the water to boil for the tortellini.  A couple minutes before you start boiling the pasta, heat a bit of oil in a sauté pan over medium high heat. Add the tortellini to the pot of boiling water, and cook according to package directions. When it's done, drain and set aside.

Sauté the shrimp in the hot oil, sprinkling them with salt and pepper. Add the wine, and be careful not to overcook the shrimp! You want them tender, not rubbery. Just before they're done (they'll still be a bit translucent), remove them and and the wine from the pan. Set them both aside in a bowl.

In the same pan, heat a bit more oil, and turn the heat down to medium. Add the peas and the pesto. Stir in the lemon zest and juice, heat through. Remove from heat. Stir the 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese into the pan, and then add the shrimp and wine to the pesto mixture. Toss to coat evenly. The heat from the sauce will finish cooking the shrimp.

Toss the sauce with the tortellini, or spoon the sauce over, if you like. I prefer to toss it all together. Sprinkle individual servings with more parmesan cheese.

• I’ve been using pastas from Buitoni for a long time, so I could already speak for the quality of those. If you’ve never tried their Wild Mushroom Agnolotti, you should--it’s fantastic!
• This was my first time trying their sauces, and I chose the pesto, of course. It’s very fresh tasting! If you don’t have access to fresh basil, as I don’t yet, since it’s not garden season here, this makes a delicious substitute!
• I used the PRA Soave Classico in the pasta recipe, as well. You know the rule! If you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it!

If you’d like to try this recipe, or experiment and come up with your own, Buitoni has generously offered to give one of you the same goodies they sent me!

One lucky reader (US only) will win two VIP full-value product coupons, PLUS a $25 gift card to Wine.com.

To enter:

1) Like Buitoni on Facebook. This one’s a must! Let me know in a comment here that you did.

Additional Entries, if you like:

2) Leave a comment on this post telling me which Buitoni pasta or sauce you’d most love to try.

3) If you’d like to Tweet about this giveaway or Share it on Facebook, leave another comment here telling me that you did.

That’s it! Easy! I’ll choose a winner randomly on Thursday, May 5th. Good luck!

Disclaimer: I was given the two Buitoni coupons and the Wine.com gift card free of charge. I wasn’t compensated for my opinions, which are my own.

Garlic Shrimp, Chocolate Cake, and now I'm kicking myself for not making Easter Dinner!

This past Saturday was my husband Billy's birthday, so we of course had a party for him, and had everyone over that evening. Earlier in the week, I figured that if we were going to see everyone on Saturday, why not just skip making a huge Easter dinner? Not that I minded making one, it's just that I didn't really feel like entertaining two days in a row, you know? And that way, we could pack up the kids and get out of the house on a (sort of) mild, sunny day. Good plan, right? Right!

Until this morning, when I was reading some blogs and came across this post at culinography. I'll wait while you go have a look. Looks delicious, doesn't it? That's why I'm kicking myself for not making an Easter dinner. I love those leftovers! Ham sandwiches, quiche or frittata, and any other stuff that includes ham and your leftover veggies and stuff. Why didn't anyone remind me? Why didn't someone tell me that I'd miss out on the glory of big holiday dinner leftovers? Why????? Ah well, I guess I could pick up a ham at the store this week. Maybe even on sale! Whatever the next holiday is, I'll be counting on you guys to remind me of this, ok? Thanks in advance. ;)

So! When I asked Billy what he wanted for his birthday dinner, he said he wanted to make pizza. What? HE wanted to make pizza? He's the official pizza chef in the house, not me. So I said "Are you sure?" He was! By the way, if you're wondering if I'm talking about my husband or a kid named Billy--yes, Billy is my husband. I cannot ever get used to calling him Bill. He was Billy when I met him (we were 19! God!), and he always will be. He's Bill to everyone else, though. But I'm off topic! He wanted to make pizza. His pizza is the best, so I wasn't going to argue. I was in charge of toppings. We had plain cheese, garlic shrimp, and meatball for my sister in law, because she's allergic to shellfish, poor thing, and we kind of like having her around!

The garlic shrimp is one of the easiest things in the world to make. It's all in the timing. Get everything ready to go ahead of time and that way, you can add it to the pan without having to run around the kitchen. Otherwise, you'll end up with rubbery overcooked shrimp, instead of the tender little morsels they are. This recipe is adapted from an old friend's recipe. It makes some sauce, and is great over pasta, or with crusty bread for mopping up the sauce. You can double everything but the shrimp if you want more sauce. It also makes an amazing pizza topping! Just remove them from the sauce, but save that for something else, like dipping your pizza crusts in!

Garlic Shrimp

5 or 6 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
pinch of red pepper flakes
1/3 cup white wine (you know the rule, use wine you'd actually drink!)
1 lb shrimp, shelled and deveined
coarse salt
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp butter
chopped parsley to garnish

Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat, and add the garlic. Cook slowly for a minute or two to flavor the oil with garlic, but be careful not to burn it.
Add the red pepper flakes and increase the heat to medium high.
Add the wine and let this go for about a minute, then add the shrimp.
Season with salt.
Cook until the shrimp is almost done (this will only take a couple of minutes.)
Add the lemon juice and butter to finish the sauce.
Garnish with finely chopped parsley.

The chocolate cake was really good! It didn't look perfect--my cakes never do. But it was homemade and tasty. I used the recipe for Decadent Chocolate Cake from Whole Grain Gourmet. It was delicious! Not quite as fudgey...fudgy? fudge-like as I had hoped, but since we're trying to get more whole grains into our diet, we wanted to try this one. It was moist and dense though. It didn't taste whole grain at all, and the guests all loved it. It was topped with their ganache, as well. All in all, really good cake! And I managed to get one lamo shot. Be nice, I'm not the best when it comes to cake presentation!

So what did we do on Easter Sunday? We hit the road and went to the beach. It was so sunny and blue. A very nice change from the dirty gray snow that's left over, and the grass that's not yet lush and green.

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