Thursday, January 10, 2013

Damn I'm a Good Cook!

Or at least I can follow a recipe well. 
Each week you can almost guarantee that I am going to make one Mexican meal and one Italian meal.  They are quick, easy, cheap, delicious and you can change them up quite a bit.  Mexican is usually a choice of chicken or beef, flour or corn tortilla or chips, cook it on the stove or throw it in the oven and give it a name of fajita, enchilada, taco, burrito or nacho.  
Italian is roughly the same; chicken or beef, type of pasta, stove or oven, and a sauce (here lies the challenge).  I do not have much of a variety for Italian sauces.  We use Prego marinara, sometimes I make it a little creamy with marscapone, but other than that I have nothing.  A couple of times I've tried the vodka marinara sauce, but its just not the same as a restaurant.  I've always wanted to find a good alfredo sauce, because nothing from the store has ever been good enough to buy twice.  Well I am here to tell you I found the recipe and it is amazing!!!  Last night I made Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo with the following alfredo recipe.  I found it listed as the Olive Garden Alfredo Recipe on pinterest, however the link is bad/spam so I only have the ingredients.  I combined them in a way that made sense to me and I'll be damned if it wasn't delicious!!!  I could drink that stuff right out of the pot!!

                             (ok so I need to work on pics, but it was delish!)

Olive Garden Alfredo Sauce
          1 stick of butter
          1 clove of garlic (minced)
          1 pint of heavy cream
          1 cup of parmesan  (I used shredded from a bag, it's cheaper)
          2 tbsp cream cheese
          1/4 tsp salt
          1/2 tsp white pepper

In a medium sauce pot melt the butter and add garlic.  Heat until garlic is tender.  Add heavy cream and heat to almost a boil.  Add cream cheese and let it melt down.  Add parmesan, salt and white pepper.  Continue stirring until cheese is melted. I never let it get to a rolling boil.  Once melted and hot, it's ready to go.

I was trying to be good and use portion control so I left it in the pan and we each piled our sauce on the fettuccine.  I think that next time I may pour the whole thing over whatever pasta I'm using and just mix it all together.  I'm telling you this stuff is amazing!!! Nick went back for seconds and also made himself a leftover plate.  And when it comes to food he can be very particular. 
I need to do a little research on storing this sauce.  Nick does a lot of canning so I'm wondering if I could make a triple or quadruple batch and make a few jars?  My biggest question is do I have to store them in fridge due to dairy product and how long will the keep if sealed?  If I attempt the canning I'll let you know.

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