Tortellini and Vegetable Soup

A few weeks ago I was feeling under the weather and was craving vegetable soup with some substance.  David suggested tortellini vegetable soup and this recipe was our final result.  You can really substitute a lot of different veggies in this recipe and could even swap pasta for the tortellini.  I would love to have put some fennel in this dish to complement the tomato based broth.

Ingredients

1/2 onion thinly sliced
1 celery stalk chopped
4 medium carrots peeled and chopped
1 quart chicken stock (using veggie stock here will make it vegetarian)
1/2 cup of tomato paste
salt/pepper
1/2 lb tortellini or pasta
1 handful of parsley removed from stems and finely chopped

1.  Heat soup pot over medium high heat, when hot add a little olive oil or butter.
2.  Add onion, celery and carrot to the soup pot and stir to coat with oil.  Let cook 5 minutes.
3.  Add stock, tomato paste and stir to combine
4.  Bring to a boil and add tortellini and cook per package direction (about 6 minutes)
5.  Salt/pepper to taste (after it cools down of course)
6.  Put in a bowl and add chopped parsley and serve!