Creamy Italian Sausage with Cheese Tortellini

I ran across this recipe earlier in the week and had to give it a try! 
I am glad I did - the tastes really work well together - the spicy Italian sausage is mellowed a bit by the cream cheese sauce with sweet tomatoes.  This recipe make a lot of food!  It reheat great and I've frozen some to see how that thaws and reheats too (I'll update this post when that happens) I added some crushed fennel to my dish but, left off the wine for now. I will be trying that next time when I also try a different "pasta" such as Bow Tie!  Enjoy ~ Diane 

Creamy Italian Sausage and Tortellini

Ingredients:
1 lb. Italian sausage (bulk, casings removed) 
1 can of diced tomatoes with Italian seasoning
1 "family sized" container of cheese tortellini. 
1 box frozen spinach, cooked in microwave
1 box (4 cups) chicken broth
1 (8 oz) block of cream cheese
1/2 cup cold water + 2 Tbsp cornstarch
dried basil and oregano to taste
*crushed fennel, optional
*1/4 Cup dry white wine, optional

Directions:
Brown the Italian sausage in a large heavy pot. If it came in the casings, cut them open and discard the casing. Break the sausage up into small bite sized pieces as you brown it. Once it's no longer pink, dump everything else in. Add the seasoning last, so you can adjust as needed. Give it a nice stir to distribute the cream cheese. It's done when the tortellini are tender and the sauce has reduced and thickened, roughly about 10 - 12 minutes after dumping it all together and bringing back up to a good medium boil. That's it folks! You can't get much simpler than that!

Recipe Adapted from: Menu Musings of a Modern American Mom 
Photo by: Diane Baker for Canning and Cooking at Home

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