Lighter Fettuccine Alfredo Sauce

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Let’s face it. Nothing quite compares to Heavy Cream which is used as the main ingredient in Alfredo. Heavy cream can make anything bad taste good, not to mention butter and bacon. I think that Alfredo sauce is probably one of the hardest dishes to make lighter.

I used 1% milk instead of the 2% the recipe called for. That would have probably made the sauce a little bit richer. There is also fat free half-and-half, but I can never find that in the grocery stores. Is there such a think as Fat Free Heavy Cream???  It calls for butter and parmesan cheese too. HELLO?! That’s like impossible to find ingredients to replace all that yummy goodness with. I thought this recipe did a good job of trying to make it lighter and it still tasted good. Like I said before, nothing compares to the real sauce. If you ever feel like indulging this is the dish to make.

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Servings: 4

Per serving: Calories 490; Fat 15 g (Saturated 8 g); Cholesterol 48 mg; Sodium 734 mg; Carbohydrate 66 g; Fiber 3 g; Protein 20 g

Recipe from Food Network Magazine

Lighter Fettuccine Alfredo

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Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • 1 clove garlic (minced)
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest
  • 2 teaspoons flour
  • 1 cup 2% milk
  • 3/4 cups grated (parmesan cheese)
  • 3 tablespoons fresh parsley
  • 2 tablespoons Neufchtel or low-fat cream cheese
  • 12 ounces fettuccine noodles

Directions

Step 1
Make the sauce: Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and lemon zest and cook until the garlic is slightly soft, about 1 minute. Add in the flour and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon,1 minute. Whisk in the milk and 3/4 teaspoon salt and cook, whisking constantly, until just thickened, about 3 minutes. Add the Neufchatel and parmesan cheese; whisk until melted, about 1 minute. Stir in the chopped parsley.
Step 2
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the fettuccine and cook until al dente, 2 to 3 minutes. Reserve 1 cup cooking water, then drain the pasta and return to the pot.
Step 3
Add the sauce and 1/2 cup of the reserved cooking water to the pasta and gently toss to combine, adding more cooking water as needed to loosen. Season with salt. Divide among bowls and top with parmesan and pepper.

 

Kid Friendly Pasta

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The Food Network has been having new shows of the Pioneer Woman lately. She is one of my new favs. Ina still is in first place though, but I just love to watch her cook and learn about her life and family. Much more interesting than mine is anyway. On Saturday’s show she made this pasta. I wanted to make it right away since I had all the ingredients on hand. This pasta should be called Kid and Adult Friendly Pasta. You just don’t have to be a kid to enjoy this one. It has 3 of my favorite ingredients in there: cheese, bacon, and tomatoes. Can’t go wrong with that!

To make this pasta lighter, I used light mayonnaise and 1% milk. That was used to figure out the points plus value. If you really wanted to, you could use turkey bacon. I don’t really recommend that because I prefer the real bacon. This would be a great lunch time meal served with some fruit.

Oh yeah, go ahead and pin my recipes.  I don’t know if any one has noticed yet but I’ve placed a pin it button on every recipe. Happy pinning!

 

Servings: 8

Points Plus: 8

Calories 328, Fat 10.07g, Carbohydrate 39.68g, Fiber 2.4g, Protein 19.49g

Recipe from the Pioneer Woman

Kid Friendly Pasta

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Ingredients

  • 12oz pasta (fun shaped)
  • 8 small slices of bacon
  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 4 tablespoons vinegar
  • 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes (halved lengthwise)
  • 1/2lb cheddar (cut into small cubes)
  • 3 green onions
  • ground black pepper
  • 24 sprigs basil leaves

Directions

Step 1
Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions. Then drain and rinse in cold water until cool. Set aside.
Step 2
Cut the bacon into 1/2-inch pieces and throw into a large skillet. Saute until slightly crisp, and then remove to a paper-towel-lined-plate.
Step 3
For the dressing, mix the mayonnaise, milk, vinegar, salt, and sugar if using in a small bowl.
Step 4
Stir together the pasta, dressing, tomatoes, bacon, Cheddar and green onions in a large mixing bowl. Taste for seasonings, adding more salt and pepper if needed.
Step 5

Stir in the basil at the end.

Spicy Thai Noodles

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I think this is one of the best noodle dishes I’ve ever made! It was so good.  I wish I had the cilantro and carrots to add into this and next time I’ll add in some chicken. Highly recommended if you love some Thai food. The website I got this recipe from said that you can even omit the peanut oil if you wish. The peanuts give it a nice crunch. It’s nice and spicy too.

 

Nutrition info was figured out using whole wheat noodles. This dish is kind of pointy but what do you expect with the sesame oil? :)

Servings: 8

Points Plus: 12

Ingredients adapted from A Small Snippet

1 – 2 Tablespoons of Crushed Red Pepper
1/4 cup of vegetable oil
1/2 cp of sesame oil
6 tablespoons of honey
6 tablespoons of soy sauce
1/2 cup green onion
2 carrots, peeled and shredded
1/2 cup of cilantro
3/4 cup of peanuts

16 oz of linguini or spaghetti noodles

Directions:
Boil noodles.
Cook the two oils together over medium heat for 2 minutes. Strain the crushed red pepper and keep the oil.
Whisk together the honey and soy sauce into the oil.

Pour mixture on top of noodles and toss together until noodles are well coated. Chop the veggies and peanuts and add them to the noodles.

 

Spicy Macaroni and Cheese

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I was watching the Best Thing I Ever Made on Food Network this morning and saw Sunny Anderson make her mac and cheese. It looked so good, and I knew I had all the ingredients to make it besides the pepper jack cheese. Even without the pepper jack cheese it was awesome. The cayenne pepper gave it just the right amount of heat. The thing I liked most about this recipe, was the fact that it didn’t require making a roux. A roux is a mixture of equal parts butter and flour. Then you would whisk in the milk, but this recipe just required mixing a bunch of ingredients together into a bowl. The mac and cheese was rich and creamy, and it’s easy to half the recipe for just one person.

Speaking of Food Network… I don’t mind all those competition shows like Chopped, Cake Wars, and Restaurant Impossible, but do they honestly need to show the same episodes over and over again? I would rather see more cooking shows and they seem to be cutting those off at 11am CST on the weekends. Please Food Network, add more cooking shows to your line up because I get sick of watching the re-runs. Because of that, I am now a fan of Big Bang Theory. :)

I cut this recipe in half and if using 1% milk and low fat cheddar cheese and low fat colby cheese the nutrition info is as follows. It came out to 3 servings. (without croutons)

Calories 208 | Fat 5.74g | Carbohydrate 22.34g | Fiber 0.9g | Protein 15.97g

Ingredients from Sunny Anderson

  • 2 cups elbow pasta, cooked until almost al dente
  • 8 ounces Cheddar, 1/2 cubed, 1/2 shredded
  • 8 ounces Colby cheese, cubed
  • 8 ounces Monterey pepper jack cheese, cubed
  • 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
  • 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
  • 4 tablespoons sour cream
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1 cup half-and-half
  • 1/4 cup finely grated onions
  • 4 slices bread
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • Special equipment: 2-quart baking dish

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, toss together the pasta with the cheese cubes and pour into the baking dish.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, dry mustard, nutmeg. Add the sour cream, egg, heavy cream, half-and-half and onions. Pour over the pasta and cover with the shredded Cheddar. Bake uncovered until the top is just beginning to brown, about 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut the bread into crouton-size squares. In a skillet over medium heat, melt the butter, add the bread cubes and toast until golden. Sprinkle the bread cubes on top of the macaroni and cheese and bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes more.