It's All About the Garnish!

Recipe from the Dinner Party: Fettucine Alfredo with Portabella Mushrooms and Tarragon

(Use the good stuff, or you'll be sorry!)

I've been making Fettucine Alfred for years, based on my Dad's recipe. What I do mostly follows his recipe, but I've made a couple of changes because it's not the prettiest dish on its own. In an earlier post (Bad Barilla), I chronicled how I discovered that using the right ingredients really does count. Let's move on and get to the good stuff:
In a medium sautee pan, on medium-low heat, sautee sliced portabella mushrooms with a couple teaspoons of butter. Add Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste.

Boil a large pot of water, with a few teaspoons of Kosher salt.

In a large saucepan set on the lowest heat possible, melt a stick of unsalted butter.
When it's melted, whisk in a half pint of heavy whipping cream.
Adding a little at a time, whisk in shredded asiago cheese.
When all of the cheese is melted, shake in some ground nutmeg and white pepper.
Important:  keep this sauce on LOW HEAT! You should be able to put your finger in the sauce and not get burned.

Cook pasta (a good brand!) according to package directions. Drain, plate and add sauce. Garnish with portabellas and a sprinkle of freshly chopped tarragon!

Bad Barilla

I promised I'd report back on the birthday dinner I made for my mother-in-law, and while I tried my very best, it wasn't as perfect as I'd hoped. The antipasto was great and the salad was superb (recipe next post), but I bombed on the Fettucine Alfredo.
The sauce was the wonderfully cheesy, creamy artery-blocker I always make. The problem was the pasta. I boiled the water with salt, and dumped in the fettucine noodles in bunches, stirring each time. They had plenty of room to move around, as I used my biggest stock pot. I cooked them for the time specified on the box, stirring a couple of times throughout. But, when I drained the pasta (after pulling a noodle out and checking it, finding it done correctly) I noticed that there were nasty clumps of glue-together strands. Of course, I dumped these out because I would never serve them. I proceeded to plate the rest and spoon the sauce over the top, finishing the dish with sauteed portabella mushrooms and a sprinkle of tarragon.
The MIL and the 13 year old child happily dug in, but I noticed something was amiss when I looked at the Husband across the table. The expression of disappointment on his face was heartbreaking. He had been so excited about one of his favorite dishes, and he wasn't happy. I asked what was wrong, and he told me to have a taste. I did and discovered that the noodles were gummy and cooked unevenly, rendering the dish pedestrian at best. Not my proudest moment.
I thought back to what could have possibly gone wrong. The sauce is an old family recipe, and I followed procedure to the letter. It was great. But the fettucine noodles themselves?  Horrible! What was different this time? Salty water? Check. Lots of boiling room? Check. Lid half on/half off? Check. Tasting the noodles before draining? Check. The only variable that was different from other times was the brand of pasta I used. My go-to-brand is DeCecco, but I was in a hurry and Safeway didn't carry it, so I bought Barilla.

 

So, this should serve as a lesson:  Never try a new brand when you're out to impress your dinner guests! If I had been making this on a random Tuesday, it wouldn't have been a big deal. Live and learn, I guess. Then blog it so others won't make the same mistake!

Regretful Risotto

For years, I've wondered about the hype regarding risotto. It's a regular feature on the menu for Fox's Hell's Kitchen, I see it offered in high-end restaurants and know that it's supposed to be some sort of heavenly rice-based dish that, when done correctly, transcends space and time.

I still don't get it.

I have a box of Arborio rice that has languished in my pantry for a couple of years now, as I chip away at it every time I make an attempt on rissoto. I've tried a recipe from the bible, Joy of Cooking. I've searched for the highest rated version on epicurious.com. I've asked friends what they do. I follow each set of instructions to the letter, which is rare for me, as I'm really not into recipes. Each time, my efforts fall flat and I end up with a plate of sticky, gooey, bland-ish rice.

Is it just me? Do I have a risotto retardation?

The last straw was Monday night. Faced with a lack of starch options for the night's dinner, I gamely cooked up another batch, with white wine, asiago cheese and fresh parsley. My husband valiantly pushed his portion around on his plate and hid the remainder under his abandoned cutlery. I believe I must admit defeat on this one dish and move on.

What about you, dear reader? Is there a dish you just can't seem to master, no matter how hard you try? Comments are open below!

Messy Fridge = Scattered Cooking

A messy fridge can sneak up on even the most vigilant cook.
And, it results in mayhem. I believe the ease in preparing dinner is directly proportionate to the organization of one's refrigerator.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not going to get all Bree Van de Kamp on you and insist that cheese should be arranged according to pungency. BUT... having things placed in 'quadrants' has certainly helped me really see what I have, how it relates to other foods, and not forget to use it before it goes bad.

First, let's take a look at what went wrong...
It starts out fine on the top shelf, which is for beverage only, ranging from healthy to not, left to right. The trouble begins just below the cheese/lunchmeat drawer, where I've stuffed random items such as artichoke pesto and bags of fruit salad. This area should be only for lunch items, like bread, leftovers, etc. To the right of the wayward salad, we have a tupperware full of bacon grease (that one needs its own post), a bag of Mexican cheese (should be in the drawer) and leftover pasta. The bottom shelf is where the food has seemingly staged a rebellion, with veggies that have escaped from their drawers, and a tub of hastily stashed whipped cream, which should be in the freezer. There might also be a steak or two in the very back, but because I can't see it, I could be presented with an exercise in spontaneous generation before I get to it.

My advice? Divide the refrigerator into quadrants, or sections. Beverages, lunch items, veggies, side dish stuff, meats. This way, when searching for inspiration, you can concentrate on one area at a time, cutting down on the amount of 'refrigerating the entire neighborhood' by holding the door open.
So, I had a messy fridge. What's my point? When it was like this, I couldn't figure out what to cook because I had no idea what I had, what was still good, what needed to be used up, etc. It's since been organized, and now I have some room in my head to dream up tasty dishes instead of trying to figure up what's going on in the dark corners of the crisper.

Potato Bomb

No, 'Potato Bomb' isn't the name for some awesome starchy dish stuffed with fried and fatty things. Unfortunately, it's what we had in our kitchen last night after a mishap with a couple of tubers.

In my haste to get a couple of Idaho baking potatoes into the oven, I forgot to poke them. Thusly, without a 'blow hole' to let steam out, the steam escaped via explosion. Don't let this happen to you:

The blast was so loud, the husband and I were convinced someone was directly outside the house shooting skeet. From now on, no potato will go un-poked.