Bertolli Classic Risotto Review and Giveaway - Closed!

Bertolli Risotto Winner is.....

Evelyn Damptey!! 

Congrats Evelyn, I'll be contacting you to send you the coupons for Free Bertolli Risotto!  They are sooooooo good, I hop eyou enjoy them as much as my family does.  They have become a staple in our meal rotation now!



With the weather already starting to cool down here in my part of the country, it's been a great time to start reintroducing soups and heartier foods back into our dinner menu.  Luckily I have had some help from Bertolli!  Their Meal Soups are wonderfully warm and filling and make a quick and easy meal option for my family on busy nights.

 

Having said that, my boys need variety.  Man cannot live on meal soups alone.  Which is why Bertolli is continuing to expand it's line of frozen meal options to include some SERIOUSLY AMAZING risottos.

 

 

 

I love risotto, but it really is a LOT of work to make, which is why I have only ever made it one time and it didn't really turn out all that great.  I don't have the kind of patience it takes to do risotto the right way so it comes out creamy and delicious.  Bertolli Classic Risotto was made for people like me. 

 

It's full of high quality veggies and meats and it only takes about 12 minutes, from start to finish, to cook.  It comes out of the bag looking like this:

 

 

 

After 12 minutes and a few stirs, it looks like this: 

 

 

 

My family was equally divided between the Roasted Chicken and the Garlic Shrimp flavors.  I absolutely adored the Bertolli Roasted Chicken Risotto, which was full of asparagus, portabello mushrooms, big chunks of roasted chicken, all mixed with italian rice in a creamy parmesan sauce.  

 

You guys know by now that I kind of have some weird texture issues when it comes to food.  I hate mushy veggies so I'm always a little skeptical about the vegetables in frozen meals, but found the asparagus to be perfectly cooked.  The rice wasn't mushy eather.  It still has a nice "tooth" to it, even after cooking in the sauce.  The whole dish had a nice earthy flavor from the mushrooms and the chicken was moist and flavorful. 

 

My boys both loved the Bertolli Garlic Shrimp Risotto.  It was chock full of italian rice and garlic shrimp with decent size chunks of zucchini, yellow squash and red peppers in a white wine cream sauce. Again, none of the veggies were overcooked, which is actually pretty amazing, considering that it doesn't take much to overcook squash.  The Garlic Shrimp Risotto had more of a garden fresh taste to it.  The red peppers really livened up the dish.  And there was plenty of shrimp so no one felt like they got gypped with the seafood. 

 

The only problem I had at all with cooking the risottos was that regulating the heat on my electric stove so that the rice didn't stick to the bottom of the pan (I really miss my gas stove).  I turned my head for just a minute and when I got back to my pots, the Garlic Shrimp Risotto had begun to stick to the bottom of the pan, but I caught it in time to salvage the dish so no harm was done.

 

I am excited to find more quick and easy options for family dinner time.  Bertolli offers a wide variety of frozen options now that give busy moms some great options for quick, easy and healthy meals. 

 

Wanna Win Bertolli Classic Risotto? Bertolli has graciously offered two coupons for free Bertolli Classic Risottos to one of my readers!! Go check out the Bertolli website and then leave a comment telling us which Risotto you wat to try first. 

Want extra entries? Do any of these and leave a comment with links to your posts, tweets or status updates:

• Follow my blog
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• Mention the giveaway on your blog

Contest will end on October 30th at 12 midnight MST. Winner will be chosen by random drawing using Random.org and notified if chosen. Please make sure to leave your email so I can get in touch with you if you win! Thanks for reading and good luck!

 

***Disclosure - Bertolli provided me with products to help facilitate this review. However, the honest opinions shared on this review are my own.**

Bertolli "Make a Weeknight Meal Special" Challenge

Mealtimes at my house can be pretty chaotic, mostly because I'm not a great cook. Coming up with interesting meal ideas that everyone likes can be pretty challenging. Part of that challenge comes from the fact that I only cook 5 or 6 things really well, so when we try to work a new recipe into the rotation, I kind of panic. Why? Because I'm one of those people that can follow a recipe to the letter and still not have the dish turn out right. It's true. I once messed up Hamburger Helper. HAMBURGER HELPER, people!!!   Weeknight meals are even tougher to pull off because there is much less time to get things organized after a busy day at work and school, then get everyone fed before we have to take off for Scouts or other evening activities. So I often look for easy meals that don't take a lot of prep time, but that still taste yummy.

I had the opportunity tonight to  try out new Bertolli Meal Soups.  The challenge was to "Make a Weeknight Meal Special" using Bertolli Meal Soup and my own creativity.   The catch is that I had to have it ready to go in just an hour.  For some people that would be a walk in the park.  For me?  I was a little worried about meeting the 60 minute deadline.  However, my fears quickly dissipated once I found the Bertolli Soup Meals in the supermarket and got them home.  I grabbed two bags so the boys could have a choice: 

Tuscan Style Beef and Vegetables 

 and Tomato Florentine and Tortellini with Chicken.

All I had to do was pour the contents of each bag in a pot and add a cup of water.  NO WAY in heck I could mess this one up.

While the soups heated, I cleaned off the table which was filled with lots and lots of papers, mail and various handouts and homework assignments.  I wanted to set it with the nice dishes and a pretty centerpiece, but all my good stuff is still packed in the garage from our recent (is 5 months still considered recent?) move.  So I settled for a clutter free table, which I considered to be a decent size accomplishment all by itself!  And given ther fact that Big Man works at night, having a meal at the table as a family was pretty special too.  We don't get to do that too often because he usually leaves for work before dinnertime.

Tuscan Style Beef and Vegetables           Tomato Florentine and Tortellini with Chicken
 

By the time the table was set, the soup was done.  I added some crusty french bread rolls that I'd snagged when I was checking out of the grocery store and we all sat down to a yummy, easy to make meal that was ready in less than an hour.  

I started the meal at 6:50 pm and we finished eating at 7:33. No stress, no mess and everybody left the table satisfied. SUCCESS!

Things we loved about the soups:

• Fresh ingredients...the vegetables were not all mushy and wilted, the pasta was not overcooked and the meat chunks are real meat.
• Hearty...the soups are not all broth. The pasta and veggies give them substance to make them filling enough that they satisfied all 3 of my hungry fellows!
• Super fast to prepare! I'm not kidding...the soups heat up in 10-15 minutes!

The only negative comment about the taste of the soup came from my husband, who loved the Tuscan Style Beef, but thought the Tomato Florentine with Tortellini was a little sweet for his taste.  I liked them both and found the Tomato Florentine to be perfectly lovely.

So tonight it was Bertolli Meal Soups for the win.  Will I buy Bertolli Meal Soups again?!  Yep, but to be honest, at $8.99 per bag at my local supermarket, I will definitely wait until I have coupons and couple those with a sale to make it a more affordable meal.  I love Bertolli products because the quality and taste of the food is always outstanding and I have no problem paying a bit more for quality ingredients.  But for a family on a really tight budget, this is not a meal we could do often without some help from sales and coupons.

Bertolli Meal Soups can be found in the freezer section of your local grocery store.  You can find out which of your local grocers carries the soups at the Bertolli website.  You can also follow them on Twitter and Facebook, where you can ask questions and leave comments about the Bertolli Meal Soups product line.

**Disclosure: I was compensated by Bertolli to participate in the Weeknight Meal Special Challenge.  However, the opinions in my reviews are my own.**