Sorry I haven't posted one of these in a while! Don't get me wrong, I haven't been slacking in the kitchen. I have been busy making a lot of different and yummy meals, I just haven't been good about taking photos and posting about them!
For example, I slow cooked my first pot roast with 100% Grass Fed Organic beef that I got from PCC. I have made pot roast in the oven before but never in the slow cooker and this was my first experience with grass fed meat. It has a different taste but overall it was a big success! I also improvised a lot with different recipes like tuna casserole by using ingredients I had from my pantry vs. going out and buying specific ingredients.
What was on the menu tonight?
I have been wanting to try my hand at alfredo sauce for a while. For the last few years I have been making alfredo sauce from a packet, not terrible, just not omg amazing either. I had bought some heavy cream a couple of weeks ago to make wafer cookies for V-Day with but I never got around to making them so I found this Alfredo Sauce recipe.
Here is how I made dinner tonight:
Chicken: 2 tbsp. EVOO in a hot pan and cooked 3 pre-marinated chicken breasts with some red pepper flakes and montreal steak seasoning. (I got 3 large roasted garlic marinated Foster Farms chicken breasts at Safeway on clearance for $1.72!! Just froze them until I wanted to use them.)
For the Alfredo Sauce: Melt 3 tbsp. butter in a saucepan add 2 large cloves of minced garlic to the butter and simmer 3-4 min on low-med. heat. Slowly stir in 1 cup of heavy cream. If you do not want to use cream you could whisk 2-3 tbsp. flour into the butter and then use milk instead of cream. Stir Constantly!
Add large pinch of nutmeg, large pinch of dried parsley and salt & pepper to taste. Separate an egg yolk and discard the whites. Add 2 tbsp of the warm sauce to the egg yolk and mix together. Slowly pour the yolk/sauce combo into the rest of the sauce. The reason for doing this is so the egg yolk doesn't cook and become clumpy in the sauce.
Simmer for about 4-5 min stirring almost constantly to prevent separating. Remove from heat and slowly mix in about 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Toss with cooked pasta of your choice, I used penne. Finely slice the chicken after it's been cooked and add it to the top of your pasta with a dusting of fresh parm. If you want to be somewhat healthier (The sauce is SO not healthy, I know!) you can serve this with steamed veggies or thaw some frozen peas and mix them into the pasta/sauce combo. 
The Finished Product! (Sorry the picture quality isn't great.)Words from my husband, "SO. GOOD." "Fantastic" "Just like Olive Garden".
Oh yeah, I rocked the alfredo sauce!
I love this pic of Nay eating her noodles! RAWR!
Frugal? As I said above, the chicken was exceptionally cheap at $1.72, especially for being pre-marinated. The Ronzoni Smart Taste pasta was free at Albertsons a couple of weeks ago and most of the ingredients for the sauce I had on hand except for $2 for the parm and $.99 for the cream. All in all about $5 for the whole meal and James is taking a big bowl of leftovers for lunch tomorrow.
How were your kitchen adventures the last few weeks? What did you make?
OMG! That picture is priceless!
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