Fettuccine Alfredo

Fettuccine Alfredo
From Cooking Light 

"Light" fettuccine Alfredo shouldn't be good.  It's supposed to be a heavy, fat laden dish that you can't justify eating more than once or twice a year.  So why is this Cooking Light version SO good?  Answer: we don't know.  It's been discussed at length in our house, and we simply can't figure it out.  We are generally anti low-fat dairy in cooking, as it rarely performs well and doesn't save nearly enough calories to make it worth it.  For example, we'd never dream of swapping out the plethora of cow-based fat in our beloved mac and cheese.  But here, it just works.

The only possible answer we could come up with is that maybe our guilt doesn't allow us to order fettuccine Alfredo in restaurants enough to have a very clear comparison of this version versus something more typical.  Regardless, we have never once finished this dish feeling anything less than decadently satisfied.  I'm always tempted to up the sauce:pasta ratio, but you really don't need to.  This time we even mixed in some shredded, roasted chicken, and it was still plenty of sauce.  On that note, it's the perfect dish to add stuff to - broccoli, mushrooms, chicken, it's all good.


Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp butter
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 1 1/3 cups 1% milk
• 1 1/4 cups (5-oz) Parmesan cheese, grated
• 2 Tbsp 1/3-less-fat cream cheese
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 8-oz uncooked fettuccine
• fresh ground black pepper, optional

Preparation

1. Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
2. Add garlic.  Cook one minute, stirring often.
3. Stir in flour.
4. Gradually add milk, stirring constantly with a whisk. 
5. Cook 6 minutes, or until mixture thickens, still stirring constantly.
6. Add most of the Parmesan cheese (save a little for garnish), cream cheese, and salt.  Stir with a whisk until cheese melts.
7. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions.  Drain.
8. Toss sauce with hot pasta.
9. Top with reserved Parmesan cheese and pepper.

Serves 4.

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Baked Mac and Cheese

Baked Mac and Cheese
From the Honeymoon Kitchen

The vegetarian portion of our new-baby feast is one of the greatest comfort foods of all time.  And let me tell you, this puppy was a labor of love.

Last year we received a very exciting directive from the family - bring a dish to Christmas!  As two people working our way up to hosting a real live holiday (Easter 2012, we've got our eye on you!) this was the audition opportunity we'd been waiting for.  We were assigned a starch that could sub in as an entree for John's vegetarian cousin.  Macaroni and cheese seemed like the obvious choice, but what recipe to use was not.  So we did the logical thing: tested out 4 different recipes and ate mac and cheese for no fewer than 10 meals in the month of December.

What's that?  Most people wouldn't call that logical?  Huh.

In the end we decided to use elements from all of the recipes, resulting in the very first recipe written by us!  Not gonna lie, we're pretty proud of it.

Ingredients

• 8 oz (about 2 1/2 cups) cavatappi pasta, uncooked
• 2 Tbsp olive oil (if you are fantasizing about truffle mac served in many restaurants, this is where you can sub in truffle oil, or any other flavored oil)
• 1/4 tsp lemon juice
• 3 Tbsp butter, divided
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup half and half
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 onion, minced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp Cholula hot sauce (or other hot sauce, if you can't find Cholula)
• 1 packed cup (5 oz) Gruyere cheese, shredded, divided
• 1 packed cup (5 oz) white cheddar cheese, shredded, divided
• 1 tsp dry mustard
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup panko

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook pasta according to package directions, until just tender.
3. Drain pasta and toss with olive oil and lemon juice.  Set aside.
4. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat.  Whisk in flour and cook, whisking constantly, for 3 minutes.
5. Gradually whisk in cream, half and half, and sour cream.
6. Stir in onion, garlic, bay leaf, sugar, and Cholula.
7. Simmer gently, stirring often, 15 minutes.
8. Remove from heat.  Stir in 3/4 cup Gruyere cheese, 3/4 cup cheddar cheese, and dry mustard.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
9. Remove bay leaf.
10. Stir cavatappi into cheese sauce.*
11. Pour half of cavatappi mixture into a greased, high sided 1 1/2 quart baking dish.  Sprinkle with 1/8 cup Gruyere and 1/8 cup cheddar.  Top with remaining cavatappi mixture and remaining cheese.
12. Melt 1 tablespoon butter.  Add panko to butter and toss to coat.  Sprinkle panko mixture over macaroni.
13. Bake for 25 minutes.  Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

*If you want to add mix-ins such as bacon, mushrooms, chicken, spinach, etc, this is the time to do it (step 10).  They should be pre-sauteed and well-drained from any water or cooking fat.

Serves 4 as an entree or 8 as a side dish.

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Macaroni Salad

 

Macaroni Salad
From Food Network Kitchens 

 

A lot of the food bloggers I follow are really kind, sweet people.  From what I can tell, they live their lives on an advanced holiday schedule, graciously vetting and posting all holiday-themed recipes as much as a week before said holiday.

 

I am not those bloggers.  Hence, 1 week after Labor Day, as the weather spirals further and further from anything remotely resembling BBQ inspiration, I am finally posting the macaroni salad I served last weekend.  On the plus side, summer will (theoretically) return one day, and Chicago's 9 month winter should afford me enough time to figure out how to set up a recipe search feature.  So catalog this one in the back of your brain, and then come back and search for it come June!

 

Ingredients

• 2 cups dry elbow macaroni
• 1/3 cup diced celery
• 1/4 cup minced red onion
• 1 Tbsp minced flat-leaf parsley
• 1/2 cup diced vine-ripened tomato
• 4 oz block of mozzarella cheese, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 3/4 tsp dry mustard
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 1/2 Tbsp cider vinegar
• 3 Tbsp sour cream
• 1/2 tsp salt
• additional salt + pepper, to taste

Preparation

1. Cook macaroni according to box.  Dry well and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, combine macaroni, celery, onion, parsley, tomato, and cheese.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together mayo, mustard, sugar, vinegar, sour cream, and salt.
4. Pour the dressing over the salad and stir to combine.  Season with more salt, plus pepper, to taste.
5. STORE IN YOUR FRIDGE TILL TOMORROW!!!  Promise me you won't eat this on the day you make it, and then think, huh, this wasn't very good.  Cause I'm telling you right now, it NEEDS a night in the fridge to meld together.
6. While I'm at it, double the recipe so you'll have leftovers, cause if it tastes 100% better after one night in the fridge, it's 200% better after two nights!

Serves 6 generous side helpings.

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Marcella's Tomato Sauce

 

Marcella's Tomato Sauce

From Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

 

I'm 75% Italian and John is 25%, which means in a generation of mutts, we'll be producing 50% Italian kids one day - not too shabby!  But this means that it's pretty likely our kids will one day ask us for some classic Italian family recipes...so I guess it's time to make some up!

 

This marinara sauce by Marcella Hazan is seriously so outrageously good and simple that I'm happy to pretend that she's in my family for eternity.  In her book she states that her Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter is "an unsurpassed sauce for potato gnocchi", so we looked no further and paired it with her gnocchi recipe.  Our gnocchi still needs works, so I'll save that post for another day, but this sauce is delectable as written, and may well be our family sauce for generations to come.

 

We've also had it on meatball subs, for breakfast in Eggs in Purgatory, and of course over spaghetti, and it is ALWAYS perfect.

 

Ingredients

• 2 cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice (we use San Marzanos)
• 5 tbsp butter
• 1 medium onion, peeled and cut in half
• salt, to taste

Preparation

1. Place tomatoes, butter, onion halves and salt in a saucepan.
2. Cook uncovered at a very slow but steady simmer for 45 minutes.
3. Stir from time to time, mashing any large pieces of tomato with the back of a wooden spoon.
4. Taste and correct for salt, discard onion.

Serves 6.

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