I firmly believe that it is necessary to have a good recipe for Fettuccine Alfredo in your repertoire.  It’s one of those “wow” dishes that you serve on rare occasions.  Well, in most cases.  My son decided that Thursday was the occasion. 

Because I did not have heavy cream (my meal plan was made and shopped for and did not include this dish), I had to make a special trip to the store – which I do not love because I always end up getting more than I went for!

That morning I was doing research (watching Tivo’d cooking shows while drinking coffee), and serendipitously, Lydia was making pasta.  I learned two things:  1) when the pasta dough has rested long enough it is darker than it was when it started, 2) roll out the dough and let it dry a bit and it will cut easier.  So, of course, I had to make pasta!  Since the boys were sleeping, I skipped the food processor (not worth the clean up anyhow, IMHO) and made the dough in about 5 minutes.  Later in the day, I dug the pasta maker out of the pantry (yes it’s manual, I burned through two machines) and recruited my son to assist in the making of the sheets.  I set them to dry for about 10 minutes, and was going to cut them by hand like my great-grandmother did, but clever child pulled the cutting attachment out of the box.  I had never used it, but he snapped it on and insisted we give it a whirl.  WAY faster than hand cutting!

Of course, once it was cut, it had to be dried a bit so that it doesn’t stick while cooking.  All of our chairs were put into use.  Lydia didn’t do this, but my great grandmother did.

While the pasta was cooking – and since it’s hand made you have to test it often,  I made the sauce.  It’s pretty simple, just cream, butter, Parmesan, garlic, white pepper, salt (I use unsalted butter) and fresh nutmeg - all to taste.  You just mix it together and then once the pasta is done stir it in.

The recipe serves 4, or 2 growing boys.  It took them about 15 minutes to eat the entire batch (they did let me taste it).  Did the hand made pasta add that much to the dish?  No, but it was fun.  Add the recipe to your meal plan and play around with it to make your own signature Fettuccini Alfredo.  Just keep how easy it is between us, OK?