Sunday, June 20, 2010

I have 10 minutes and I need dinner on the table

There are no amounts because it depends on how much pasta, what pasta and how hungry everyone is.

Put a huge pot of water on to boil. Pour yourself a glass of wine.

I toss as giant fistful of Vermicelli in insanely boiling insanely salted water, hit timer for 5 minutes. Sometimes I break the length into thirds so we don’t have to twirl or cut the pasta, sometimes I don’t. It’s a mood thing. I throw in a squashed garlic clove to flavor the water, it’ll virtually disintegrate, and it’s lovely to work into the sauce afterwards and is a very mild flavor.

On the side, in a giant bowl, throw in a blob of room temperature unsalted butter, *for me, a blob is a big rounded tablespoon?*

Pour a couple of glugs of cream over the butter (heavy or table cream NOT 1/2&1/2), loads of freshly ground black pepper and a couple of gratings of fresh nutmeg. There’s only a few ingredients here, quality matters.

Shush it around; don't worry about the butter blob.

Grate a big pile of fresh parmesan into a Ziploc bag to keep in the fridge so next time you don't have to do this step. Time is precious!
DING! (5 minutes are up)
Dip big coffee cup into water and get a some salty starchy water
Drain pasta
Throw cream mix into hot pot on stove on high heat, it’s going to boil immediately.

Toss pasta in and shush it around with tongs madly till butter melts, it's quick!

Take it off heat, throw in loads of fresh parmesan over and toss it around, add the saved water if it needs thinning, too thick and it's clumpy and NO ONE liked clumpy Alfredo *shudder* too thin and it's soup *double shudder*

TASTE IT then add more pepper then add more cheese :)

Serve drooling child/husband/friend/mother with more fresh parmesan sprinkled over.

To be honest, sometimes I add peas to the pasta because my son loves them, if you need a protein, a little cooked chicken on it or in it is fabulous. A quick salad with field greens and a light vinaigrette is perfect on the side. Mostly though I’m cooking this because we’re home late from soccer, choir or my Loopers! class so he washes up and rummages through his backpack while I whip this up so he gets this with a glass of milk and a big ole hunk of crusty bread rubbed with garlic and a little olive oil. Enjoy!

/tracy

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