Alfredo.

Hey ppl,

Sorry I've been weak about updating this blog. It's funny because I've been photographing all of my cooking and then just not posting it. Anyways, so my friend Kelsey pulled a bold move and asked me if I wanted to cook at her apartment because "I need new blog posts." Thanks for doing me that favor Kelsey. My friends and I have been pretty into X-Factor (except now I hate it because all of the good people are out now and that is primarily the judges' fault) and we have been watching it basically every Wednesday. So when Kelsey asked for me to cook, this was conveniently on X-Factor night AND when UNC was playing Wisconsin (we won. Boom.). I found this recipe from Giada de Laurentiis (I had to look up how to spell that) but I changed it around. I loved her concept of how to make it because it was really easy and made sense but there was wayyy too much lemon in the original recipe and Kelsey wanted to add chicken so that was an adjustment also. Let's DO IT....

There is everything right there. Obviously, you need pasta. I stuck with tradition and picked Fettucini pasta, which I hate to cook and regretted picking because it can easily stick together when you cook it and I'm just a big fan of Linguini. Any kind of long noodle pasta would work and is highly recommended to use for a creamy base sauce like Alfredo. Anyways, start by boiling the water and making the pasta. Make sure you salt the water and when you do it salt it AFTER it comes to a boil. While all of that is happening, start with cooking the chicken.

I LOVE the Perdue individual packaged chicken breasts so I just used 2 of those but I should of used 3. Kelsey wanted me to do a shout out about her Rachel Ray orange pots and pans. So I put some salt and pepper the chicken and cooked it in olive oil and a clove of garlic.

Do like 7 minutes per side or until you think its cooked through. When its done, put the chicken on a plate and let it sit while you do everything else. So in a pot, put in: 2 cups of heavy cream, 1/4 cup of lemon juice, and 1 1/2 sticks of butter. Cook this until the butter is melted and stir it now and then so it doesn't burn and the butter is mixed with everything else.

Once you are done with the sauce, turn off the heat and then add the cooked pasta. Add 1/2 cup of heavy cream and A TON of parm (about 2 cups). But, you can can add more or less based on what consistency you want. Then add a pinch of nutmeg, salt (only a little because parm is already salty) and pepper. Toss all of this together until you get exactly what you know fettucini alfredo should look like. After that, taste it and make sure you don't need to add any more pepper. Finally, slice up the chicken and toss it in the pasta. Look at beautiful below.

Boom shaka laka. Yeah this is actually pretty good and easy alfredo so I highly recommend you guys trying this. It was great and its a great go to.


Fettucini Alfredo

Ingredients:
18 ounces fettucini (1 box)
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup cup lemon juice
12 tablespoons butter (1 1/2 sticks)
2 cups grated Parmesan cheese
Pinch of nutmeg
Salt and ground pepper
Cooked meat of choice (chicken, shrimp, bacon, etc.)

Instructions:
Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente, stirring occasionally. Drain.

Stir 2 cups of the cream and the lemon juice in a pot to blend. Add the butter and cook over medium heat just until the butter melts, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

Add the pasta and toss. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of cream, and Parmesan to the cream sauce.

Add the nutmeg, salt and pepper. Toss the pasta mixture over low heat until the sauce thickens slightly. Stir in cooked meat of your choice. Serve.


Well I hope everyone tries this because its easy and thus worth trying. Below is a photo of my challenged friends enjoying the pasta....

Peace out,
Liz

Confused Apple Dessert

For TGives I usually make a dessert and its usually something with apple or pumpkin. This year I chose to make an Apple Crumb Pie. This is basically an apple crumble in a pie. To be honest, I don't know where I found this recipe, I think I just googled "apple crumb pie" and chose the first link that looked look and legit. This pie turned out very good and was even better with some ice cream on the side but why wouldn't you have the ice cream on the side in the first place? BTW, I did not do step by step pics because TGives was a blur and I didn't even think about doing step by step pics until after the fact. Lets get going....

So I used Fiji apples because I read a couple of articles and they said that Fiji apples give the best flavor and texture when you cook/bake with them and since I had no effing idea I listened to the bullshit articles I found when I googled "whats the best apple to bake with." Also, I used frozen pie crust because 1- I'm too lazy to actually make pie crust and 2- I wouldn't test out making pie crust for the first time on Thanksgiving.


If you're using frozen pie crust, take one of the shells and place it in the fridge so it thaws a little. You don't have to do this for too long but just do it for good measure like before you start everything.

Let's talk about the filling. Start with dicing up 5-6 peeled, Fiji apples. Place the apples in a bowl and add brown sugar, a little flour, cinnamon, allspice, pure vanilla extract and lemon juice. Mix all of this together. It will look dry but do your best at making sure all of the apple chunks are even coated with everything. Let the filling chill for like 10-15 minutes so everything melts together.

Now the topping. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Melt and cool 1 stick of butter. After it is fairly cool, pour it into the dry ingredients of the topping. Mix all of this together and break it up into little pieces. I actually just left it in big hunks and broke it up over the pie.

So lets put it all together. Take the pie crust out of the fridge and pour in the apple mixture and even it out so its all about the same level. Now take the topping and break it over the apple pie and basically cover 90% of the apple mixture or cover it all, up to you. Either way, you probably won't use all of the topping. Cover loosely with foil and pop this into a preheated oven that's set at 425 degrees for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, reduce the heat to 375 degrees and continue to cook for 35 minutes.


Apple Crumb Pie

Ingredients:
Filling--
5-6 large, peeled Fiji apples
1/2 cups of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of flour
1 3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of allspice
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
1/2 to 1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Topping--
1 1/4 cups of flour
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick of melted, cooled butter

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Prepare dry ingredients for the filling in a large bowl. Peel and dice the apples into small pieces. Transfer apples to the dry ingredients and then top with vanilla and lemon juice. Toss to coat the apples and set aside for 10-15 minutes.

For the topping, combine all of the dry ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl. Pour cooled melted butter into bowl. Toss and cut until small to medium sized chunks are formed. Break up the larger chunks, if needed.

Put filling thawed piecrust and then sprinkle crumb topping over the entire pie/apple mixture.

Cover pie loosely with foil. Bake at 425 degrees 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 degrees and continue baking for an additional 35 minutes. Cool and serve with ice cream.

This was a great TGives dessert and I would def make this again. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Peace out,
Liz

Hayes T-Gives

Hello Fatties,

Sorry for the hiatus, Thanksgiving break made me really lazy. Anyways, I decided to do a whole Thanksgiving post (I'm not waiting until next for this). So a typical "Hayes Thanksgiving" comprises of us going to dinner on Thanksgiving night and then having family Thanksgiving the next night where we (me) do all of the cooking and have a big ol' merry time... well kinda. To be honest, we do this because we all want the leftovers but we really like going to our club for Thanksgiving. On the Wednesday/day before TGives my mom sends me to the grocery store to get everything for Friday night... including the turkey. That makes sense right? On our Hayes TGives (the Friday after real TGives) my mom usually makes the turkey and I make everything else. In the early years, I would be very overzealous and do fancy shit that I didn't know how to do but I've smart up lately by just going to the classics. I apologize because I did not do step by step photos this time because I was way too overwhelm making everything with my brothers coming in everything 5 minutes asking when dinner is--usually they offer to help at the end to speed things up. ANYWAYS sorry for my Hayes TGives rant... LETS DO IT.


Let's start with the most important part, the turkey and stuffing. I do NOT make my own stuffing, I mean I easily could but why? Stove Top is really, really good and it takes maybe 5 minutes. I mean shit I am not going to make all of this effing cornbread and then chop up all of these veggies and bullshit when I could do it in 5min.

Anyways, I digress. So first make your stuffing (however you want to) and preheat the oven for the bird. For the bird, take out all of the insides and then rinse it to make sure its clean and there aren't any stray feathers. Now stuff the bird. Then season with salt and pepper the bird and put some butter on it....

For cooking a bird, the oven should be at 350 degrees and you should cook it for about 15-20min per pound or until the little thermometer thing pops up.


The 2 sides we had were green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. Every year we have mashed potatoes because you have to and then the next side is a free for all. Sometimes I'll add an extra side dish if we have more than 6 people.

For the green bean casserole, I used Paula Dean's recipe, which I doubled and probably should of tripled because it was epic.

So chop up the fresh green beans, mushrooms, and onions. After all of the chopping, melt butter in a skillet and then saute the mushrooms and onions and boil the green beans in chicken stock for 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes, drain the green beans and add to the skillet with a can of cream of mushroom and some salt and pepper (Paula says to use her "house seasoning" and yeah right like I was going to to make that). Also, you're suppose to add those French's Onion Rings but my mom doesn't like those because it reminds her of the "shitty" green bean casserole from when she was a kid. After everything is melted together in the skillet, place it all into a greased 1 1/2 quart glass baking dish or bowl. Bake for 20 minutes on 350 degrees and then dump some cheddar cheese on the casserole and put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Paula Dean's Green Bean Casserole

Ingredients:
1/3 stick of butter
1/2 cup of diced onions
1/2 cup of sliced fresh mushrooms
2 cups of sliced green beans
3 cups of chicken stock
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can of cream of mushroom soup
1 (2.8-ounce) can French-friend onion rings
Salt and Pepper
1 cup of grated Cheddar cheese

Instructions:
Preheat the over to 350 degrees.

Melt the butter in a large skillet. Saute the onions and mushrooms in the butter. Boil green beans in chicken stock for 10 minutes and drain. Add the green beans, mushroom soup, onion rings, and salt and pepper to the onion mixture. Stir well. Pour into a greased 1 1/2 quart baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes, then top the casserole with the Cheddar and bake for 10 minutes longer, or until the casserole is hot and cheese is melted.


For the mashed potatoes, I used the recipe I use every year, which is Ina's Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes. I usually double this recipe because the original I think only serves 4 people. So I usually get all of the potatoes (Idaho) and bring them over to the TV with a trash can and a peeler and just peel them all while watching TV. No, seriously. After peeling all of the potatoes and feeling like I was punished for something, I return to the kitchen and chop up all of the potatoes...

My dicing has become pretty awesome over the years, if you can't tell. So boil a big pot of water with some salt in it and let that boil until its fork tender. While its boiling, get out a saucepan and heat the milk and butter-- do not bring it to a boil. When the butter is melted and its combo-ed with the milk, take it off the heat and put it aside until the potatoes are ready. After the potatoes are done and drained either mash them with a masher or use a hand-mixer. While mashing, add the butter/milk and it will become a lot easy to mash. After its all smooth and awesome, add enough buttermilk until you reach your desired constancy and finally add salt and pepper, to taste.

Ina's Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:
Salt
1 1/2 pounds of potatoes
1/4 cup of milk
1/2 stick of unsalted butter
1/2 cup of buttermilk
1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper

Instructions:
In a large pot, bring water to a boil and add 1 tablespoon of salt. Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and dice them into cubes. Add potatoes to the boiling water and bring the water back to a boil. Lower the heat and let it simmer uncovered until potatoes are fork tender.

Meanwhile, heat the milk and butter in a small saucepan, making sure it doesn't boil. Set aside until the potatoes are done.

When the potatoes are fork tender, drain and return to pot. Begin mashing the potatoes with either a hand-mixer or a masher. Add the milk mixture to the potatoes gradually while mashing. When smooth, whisk in enough buttermilk to make the potatoes creamy. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and the pepper. Serve hot.

The dinner turned out pretty awesome and was maybe the best TGives dinner we've had at home. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and realized what they really are thankful for. Food, family, friends.

Peace out,
Liz


Cooking Tips:
~While cooking any meat (chicken, turkey, beef, etc), you have to let it rest after cooking. For example, once you take the turkey out of the oven you need to let it sit for 10-15 minutes. You do this so all of the juices stay in the meat and don't come pouring out when you cut it. This keeps the flavor in the meat.
~ While making casseroles, make sure all of the ingredients/vegetables are about the same size so it cooks evenly.
~While making mashed potatoes, start with little liquid and then add more as needed. You'll regret not doing this because you don't want soupy mashed potatoes.
~Never use salted butter for cooking. Unsalted butter helps you control your flavor in dishes and the salt in the butter could over power the flavor you really want out of the dish.