A Very Quick Meal to End a Very Loooong Day

In case you were interested, I work at a daycare.  In case you don't know what that is like, it is like playing academically oriented mommy to 18 three and a half year olds every day.  It's the best and I love it.  But let me tell you something about working at a daycare-- it can be exhausting.  Let's look at an example of my day to day responsibilities.  This week at work I engaged in the following activities:

-  Played tag
-  Cleaned up throw ups
-  Watched a three year old poop
-  Listened to Club Can't Handle Me Kids Bop version on 6 separate occasions
-  Drew two pumpkins, one spider, and 348 butterflies
-  Listened to a 30 year old man, whose name we will change to Teddy for the purpose of this post, read the same book 15 times
-  Caught a cold
-  Ate Indian food

So as you can clearly see, my week has been largely exhausting.  And there's truly nothing I want more at the end of the day than to come home and relax.  By 5 pm on any given week day, I'm hungry, tired, sick, and usually grossed out.  And then there's dinner to worry about.  I love cooking, as you can probably assess based on this food blog, but some days, I don't want to wait for my garlic to roast.  I want something I can whip up in eight minutes or less.

So since this blog is all about quick cheap meals, let's get away from the whole roasting garlic, caramelizing onions, and waiting for casseroles to bake thing and get quick.  Question.  What quicker than a meal that takes 8 minutes?  Fact... anything that takes 7 minutes or less.   BUT, all of that aside, being able to whip up a meal for two with only three ingredients, in eight minutes or less for around 12 dollars total, is pretty kick ass.  Especially when it involves kielbasa and looks like this:

yes, this is seriously all that we need...
1 package frozen tortellini (we used Shaw's brand because it's the cheapest and personally, I think it's way
       better than the packaged Barilla business)
3/4 small container of Buitoni All Natural Pesto with Basil
1/2 link of Hillshire Farms Turkey Polska Kielbasa 


what we need to do with these three things...
1  Boil water for pasta and cook tortellini.  It has thus far been MY personal experience that packages of tortellini tell you to boil them for 10 minutes, however, I find this to be lies.  Cook the tortellini until most of them are floating (about 4 -5 minutes) and strain.  Return to pot.
2  While the pasta is boiling, cut the Kielbasa into slices and cook on skillet over medium high until both sides of kielbasa are browning!  And since that was the worst description ever, let's look at a picture:
3  Combine cooked kielbasa and tortellini pot and toss with the pesto.  If desired, add more pesto and top with black pepper.   






Yes, it was that easy.  Yes, it was that cheap.  Yes, it was that filling.  Oh and last thing, yes, it was that delicious...


Just a side note and a shout out to my awesome preschoolers and teachers.  On Tuesday, we celebrated one of my co-workers' birthdays.  As we are learning about the letter "D" this week and preparing for all the spookiness of Halloween, we prepared Dirt Cake for her together!  Check it out below-- thanks to Aileen and her ipod, "oh I'm sorry it's an iphone", for this awesome photo!

Thumbs up to being three and a half again!