http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/tortellini-primavera-2744155.html
DRUMROLL PLEASE!! This is a major milestone for me, as I have reached the century mark in my Ree Drummond Project! There are only 37 recipes to go, which means I am going like greased lightning through this book. I’m nearly finished with Dinnertime in a mere 55 weeks (so far). By comparison, it took me over five years to complete Good Eats: The Early Years, and there was a total of 160-ish recipes in that. With that, allow me to introduce the winner of the honors, Tortellini Primavera, aka Recipe #100!
This was a big decision… I mean, “100”! That’s kind of a big deal. Would it be Roasted Butternut Squash Salad? Meh. Lemony Green Beans? Booooooring. Probably really tasty, but certainly not “Big 100” status! (No offense, Ree!!) So here’s the deal; I had actually planned on the humble Chicken Soup as my 100th recipe. I had all the ingredients. I love chicken soup. I’m terrible at making it on my own (yeah, I KNOW it’s supposed to be simple and “everyone” has a recipe, but I just haven’t mastered making a version that I think is better than the soup at The Perfect Cup restaurant in Anchorage, Alaska!) That is some quality stuff… Anyway! The soup was marked in my book and I was ready to go, but then my son decided to surprise me with dinner, and made up his own recipe utilizing a random single, vacuum-packed tilapia fillet that had been languishing in my freezer for years. Legit, YEARS. I don’t even know why I still had it. His creation was a surprisingly tasty fish and ditalini-fagiolo soup, (that’s pasta and beans in case you don’t speak Italian!) but he made about a gallon. So soup as my next recipe was out!
My runner-up became the headliner! Basically, I had all the stuff already and I got to use up more junk from the freezer. Hey, all the recipes have to get cooked anyway, right? Plus, just look at all the STUFF this one uses! (Note my delicious Nutty Irishman cocktail, essential for celebrating my 100th cook!) 
I was able to polish off the dregs of a quart of heavy cream, a partially used bag of frozen peas, an open container of Parmesan shavings, a whole dying basil plant, a ham steak, and most important, a package of frozen shrimp and lobster ravioli I’ve had forever. Ok, maybe not as long as the tilapia fillet… “Ravioli?!” you say. But this was supposed to be a tortellini recipe! So sue me, I went high-end on the pasta choice. I’m baller like that! Plus it’s what I had on-hand. At least she didn’t have me doing something crazy like hand-rolling pasta sheets and forming tortellini from scratch. (Spoiler alert: the first recipe in the next Alton Brown book I’m doing is making fresh pasta from scratch…) All I had to do for this was boil the ravioli for a few minutes, chop up the veggies and sauté them in butter.
The end result was a super tasty dish which was intended to be a main entrée, but I had a hankering for steak that wouldn’t quit today. My chef-in-training son made a recipe earlier this week that called for an herb butter currently sitting in the fridge, and I needed a reason to use it up. Yeah, I’ll go with that excuse for why I wanted a steak! To turn my Primavera into a side dish, I amped up the veggies and kept the pasta portion at 50%. Then I served it alongside these lovely hunks of beef: some inexpensive center-cut rounds for the kids (who I suspect may have been adopted, as they didn’t inherit my love of red meat!) and a ribeye for mom. I flavored them with Tastefully Simple’s Seasoned Salt and Garlic Pepper Seasoning and Worcestershire sauce for mine, and Rancher Steak Rub from Wildtree for the kids. I have reps for both these direct-sales companies if you are in the market for delicious seasonings delivered right to your door! Then I pan-seared the steaks in cast iron with butter, olive oil, and fresh rosemary, finished them off under the broiler, and topped them with the leftover herb butter. A perfect companion for the big 100!
Have Book, Will Cook 