Pesto Tortellini

We've been starting to wonder if we just shouldn't buy tortellini or ravioli type pastas at Trader Joe's. There wasn't really one thing that was wrong with all of the ones we tried, but just a bunch of different reasons. Some of them, like the spinach tortellini, just didn't really have very much flavor. Others, like the girasoli ricotta and lemon zest that they've been sampling recently, are a bit too intense in flavor (that one was way too much lemon, kind of reminded us of the confetti rice). Some of the specialty ravioli are really expensive for very few pieces and I can't imagine we would be full. I thought maybe things would be different with a non-refrigerated tortellini, so I picked up a bag of the dry Italian tortellini with pesto filling ($2.99) a few months ago.

The bag of tortellini was 16 oz, and I figured we would just cook them, toss them with some tomato sauce (we've been using this really nice Classico organic tomato sauce we got at Costco this summer) and mushrooms, and that would be one dinner with maybe a little bit of leftovers for another lunch. It wasn't until I broke open the bag and started boiling the tortellini that I realized that if we ate the entire bag, that would mean that between the 2 of us we would have eaten over 1800 calories at dinner. And that's just for the tortellini, not including anything we were to add to it! If I had realized this in advance, I could have made half the bag. My mistake.

These tortellini were fine, but they were kind of heavy and a bit overwhelming in amount. Not only was it enough for dinner for two (and very filling for that), but we also ate quite a few while the sauce was cooking and had enough for multiple meals after that. That means it's a pretty economical purchase, but we didn't like the flavor of the tortellini enough to really want to eat that much of it. It didn't have a strong pesto flavor at all (the pesto from the jar at TJ's is better), but was just some vaguely mild Italian flavored tortellini. These might work better in a salad with lots of vegetables and dressing, or for bringing to a picnic or a potluck, than for a quick pantry dinner at home.

Buy Again? Maybe, but probably not, unless we're making a big bowl of tortellini salad or something.