Simple Alfredo Sauce
Ingredients:
1 part butter (use 1 cup for 8 meal-size servings)
2 parts cream (2 cups for 8 servings)
2 parts good parmigiano-reggiano, grated (2 cup for 8 servings)
Because there are only a few ingredients in this recipe, quality is so important. This is not the time to use kraft cheese, people.
Steps:
1.) Warm butter in a saucier or saute pan. Heat gently over medium heat until all butter is liquid.
(Yes, this much butter)2.) Slowly whisk in cream. Keep the heat on medium-low. We don't want any curdling going on.
3.)Slowly whisk in cheese. Only put in a little at a time to prevent cheese clumps.
4.) Lightly simmer, whisking constantly, until the sauce thickly coats the back of a wooden spoon (or a piece of farfalle :) ).Toss this sauce with a chunky pasta (farfalle, penne, fettuccine) and watch it disappear.
Pesto!
To me, pesto is one of the most flexible things you can make. I mean think about it - nuts, olive oil, garlic, basil and cheese in a food processor, what could go wrong?
Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup toasted almonds. Pine nuts are traditional, I hear walnuts also work.
1/3 cup pecarino (or parm) cheese
2 packed cups basil (more to taste)
olive oil
Steps:
Add the first four ingredients (in order) to a food processor, blending after each addition. Use olive oil to bring the pesto together, as needed. In the end, the pesto should be fairly thick, think hummus more than marinara. Lemon juice is also good in there but I forgot to buy lemons.
Add the pesto to hot pasta, vegetables, meat, etc. A little goes a long way! At the party I served the pesto with spinach fettuccine and baby tomatoes.
Tiramisu
This dessert seems easy enough. Ladyfingers, coffee, cream - couldn't be too hard, right? Well...while tiramisu may be easy conceptually, it takes some work to execute. This is especially true because I resolved to whip everything by hand. I thought that if I was going to make something so caloric I should at least use my own muscles to make it.
Ingredients:
(For the zabaglione)
5 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup marsala wine
(for the tiramisu)
1 batch zabaglione
About 42 ladyfingers I like these
2 cups heavy whipping cream
16 ounces cream cheese
4 tablespoons ricotta
2 1/2 cups strong coffee
Vanilla
6 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons Irish whisky, brandy or some other caramel-y booze
Steps:
1.) Make the zabaglione by whipping the egg yolks and sugar in the top part of a double boiler (off heat) until pale yellow in color. Put the mixture over simmering water and whisk in marsala, a little at a time. Continue whisking until the consistency is similar to moderately thick pudding. Refrigerate zabaglione until cool.
2.) Whip 1 cup cream with 2 tablespoons sugar
(look at them peaks!)3.) Combine cream cheese, 1/2 cup heavy cream and ricotta and mix until smooth.
4.) Fold cream cheese mixture and zabaglione into whipped cream. Mix with a spatula until well-blended, refrigerate 1 hour.
5.) Arrange one layer of lady fingers on the bottom of a 9 by 13 pan (glass is nice). Stir together coffee, 1/2 cup cream, 4 tablespoons sugar, vanilla to taste (1-2 tablespoons) and booze. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of the coffee mixture over each ladyfinger, until they are soaked but not mushy. There shouldn't be any extra liquid on the bottom of the pan.
6.) Spread 1/2 of the whipped cream/zabaglione mixture over the lady fingers.
7.) Repeat layering one more time.
8.) Sift cocoa powder on top of tiramisu.
9.) Refrigerate several hours before serving (so the cookies get all nice and mushy).
There are lots of great variations possible for this recipe. The coffee mixture could be replaced with chocolate milk for a more kid-friendly dessert. Hmm, how about peanut butter in with the cream/cream cheese?I also made some delish salad dressing (nice balsamic, olive oil, garlic and sugar), spaghetti squash and roasted squash and cubanelles.
2 comments:
yummmm i want tiramisu now.
the other night we came home from a day walking around a very big, very interactive museum and we were so hungry. so of course i frantically made a quick alfredo and tossed it with seared salmon and fusilli. it was so good and so easy...but so rich. there are times when you need to eat something that tastes like it came from olive garden, haha.
oh, and try adding just a little dijon mustard to your vinaigrettes, tastes really good. also i dunno if you've ever made a homemade honey mustard but the results are pretty tops (even better than the honey mustard at school)
Ooh, I should make honey mustard, haven't done that before. We have lots of honey because we've been buying big jars from the market. I also chopped up a bunch of basil and put it in the salad so it had a basil-y taste too.
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