Fettuccine Alfredo (with bonus extras)

Another ToxicFrog post without pictures. Sorry about that. I'll try to remember next time.

Fettuccine Alfredo is a rich and delicious pasta dish, and very, very easy to make. It's a good choice when you don't mind eating something a bit heavy but do want something quick and easy to put together. It also takes very well to inclusions, such as pesto, chicken, or seafood.

This is the recipe from Hazan's Classic Pasta Cookbook; I think it's the first such recipe this blog has featured, but that book is in the "favourite cookbooks" list for a reason. The book recommends fettuccine for it, of course, but it's also good with other long pastas such as tagliatelle or linguine.

Ingredients
For pasta made with 3 eggs, or 1 pound dry, store-bought pasta

• 3 Tbs unsalted butter
• 1 cup heavy or table cream
• a pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• ½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

As always, the fresh parmesan is mandatory; don't use the dried pre-grated stuff.

Procedure

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.
2. Put the butter and cream into a large skillet over medium-high heat and boil lightly, stirring frequently, until the cream has reduced almost by half. (I find it hard to judge the volume reduction and instead go by thickness; it should be a bit thinner than you want the final sauce to be, since the cheese will thicken it up some).
3. Add the nutmeg, a pinch of salt, and a generous amount of pepper to the sauce. Remove from the heat.
4. Add a spoonful of salt and the pasta to the boiling water. Cook al dente.
5. Drain the pasta and add it to the skillet containing the sauce. Add the cheese and toss until the pasta is well-coated with the sauce and cheese. Serve.

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I mentioned earlier that this recipe takes well to extras. If you're including some sort of meat -- boneless chicken breast sliced into thin strips or chunks is a good choice, as are shrimp -- it's best to sautee it in the butter before adding the cream and other ingredients; this way its flavour infuses the butter and, later, the whole sauce. If you're including another sauce (any sort of pesto is a good idea; symbol and I will often toss in half a jar of store-bought basil or sundried tomato pesto) you can pretty much do that any time after the butter is melted and cream added.

If you're adding mixed vegetables, this is basically a pasta primavera, pasta in a vegetable cream sauce.

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Sorry we've been bad about keeping the blog updated; the baby has now gotten really, really interested in laptops and makes it difficult to actually write anything. But we're still cooking!

Highlights of this past week include "mexican lasagna" and spaghettini in a creamy sweet potato sauce, both of which will hopefully get a post sometime soon. Today, though, we made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch.

And we take our grilled cheese seriously.

No pictures, sadly, and this hardly counts as a recipe, but I like sharing it regardless.

1. Start with a of your preferred bread. Rye, multigrain, or sourdough work well.
2. Plane enough sharp (2yo or older) white cheddar to cover the bread.
3. Halve or quarter some small pickled onions and place them on the cheddar. If you want to add some greens, fried onions, Branston Pickle, or other inclusions, now is the time.
4. Add some freshly ground black pepper.
5. Top with more cheese. More cheddar is never wrong, but you can also use mozzarella, jarlsberg, emmentaler, or anything else that will melt nicely.
6. Seal with another slice of bread.
7. Spread one side with garlic butter (or butter-like garlic spread), then sprinkle some cumin over it.
8. Flip it into a hot pan, butter side down. Cook, pressing occasionally, until the bottom is turning a nice golden brown.
9. Spread the top with more garlic butter and cumin, then flip it over (carefully! it's probably not all melted together yet!). Grill further until both sides are golden brown, at which point the cumin should be nicely toasted and the melted cheese will be holding the whole thing together.
10. Remove from the pan, slice, and serve.