Tortellini and Shredded Beef in Broth with Vegetables

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The famous Italian dish, Tortellini en brodo, is a beautiful, well-known holiday pasta and broth soup upon which my simplified, shredded-beef American version is based.  I truly didn't have this dish in mind, I just happened to have a pot roast, a bunch of tortellini, and a desire for something besides the things I usually make with pot roast on a cold snowy day: pot roast and vegetables,  beef-vegetable soup, beef-barley soup, beef burgundy, and so on. If you'd like to make the real Tortellini en brodo, visit a blog that has the directions in English; many are in Italian!  Here's a good home-made blogger's  version  (Stefan's Gourmet Blog) that is totally from scratch, including the meat filling for the tortellini, and looks luscious.  If you'd rather have a little video action and a Mario Batali recipe, here's that link.  The simplest shortcut recipe is here.  In other words, you're not cooking meat for broth, bones for stock, or making homemade pasta and filling in my soup, but you are cooking a pot roast!  And while my ingredients' list isn't short, the method is simple and gives you time for other things.  

Guinness Beef Pot Pie with Cheddar-Dill Biscuits or I'm So Full I Don't Know Where I'm Going to Sleep Tonight

Made in a deep, heavy 8 quart cast iron pot with a  lid  (Dutch oven)

Last year around this time, I made a pot roast with big pieces of butternut squash and halved onions in the oven.  A day later I took the leftovers, including the gravy, and made stew.  Stew from leftovers is definitely an improvement over freshly made stew.   There's a deeper, fuller, and more flavorful rich quality--without question.  It's just that there's usually less than when you make a fresh pot. That stew made very quickly with the addition of more onions, celery, and Guinness stout, etc., was divine.   I mean it, it was an incredible stew.

No who knows totally why one time things are so scrumptious you want more and more -- and another time (same ingredients and method apparently) it's like, "This is ok. Yeah, we can eat dinner here."  Perhaps it's the quality of the meat (in the case of stew) or maybe it's a little pixie dust.  Your taste buds might be on their "A" game so that you are able to season the pot in an extraordinary way.   Truly, I just don't know.  I know when I'm tired -- really exhausted-- the meal prepared under those circumstances is plebian.  I just did that recently, so I know.  I know when I don't give something my undivided attention that it's bound to be less interesting.  (As in the kids are hungry-throw a bunch of cut-up chicken in the oven and make some rice for God's sake.)