Fettuccine Alfredo is Just Fancy Buttered Noodles

Dib the Cat

After a long weekend filled with anxiety over the Dib cat and his stay in the Animal Trauma unit, it took me a little bit to get back into the saddle of wanting to cook.  My husband had a great idea that I could distract myself by trying a new recipe while Dib was in the care of professionals to remove the almost 4 feet of string he ate.  I could not concentrate on any of the recipes.  All I could think about was how if the Dib the Cat was with me, he would be royal pain, by trying to eat the corner of the book and walking all over the stack of cookbooks.  He is a constant companion when you least want it, and he is cute so it gets away with it. Thankfully when Dib came back in piece and without the need to go under the knife, my energy and desire to cook reappeared.

To celebrate the return of my spoiled but oh so charming furry friend, I knocked out two cookbooks from The Challenge.  The cookbooks that I used are the following: The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook and Light Cooking Italian.   The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook is about three inches thick while the Light Cooking Italian barely has 94 pages to it. Both of the cookbooks came from my mother and were not ones that she recommended, but I had taken them because I thought how bad could they be, they were cookbooks.

The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook is a really good cookbook. There are lots of recipes in it, and the instructions are easy to follow. I think that what would turn a lot of people off of this cookbook, is that it is built like a dictionary. It will tell you about the ingredient and give you a recipe or two to go with it, but not a picture. Most cookbooks are all about the pictures and often times have one with every recipe or every couple of recipes.  The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook has only a thin grouping of pictures in the center of the book and that is it.  The rest of the book expects the cook to be able to read and follow instructions. I can do that.

Out of The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook I made Fettuccine Alfredo (found on page 326). I have come to the conclusion that Fettuccine Alfredo is the grown up version of buttered noodles and cheese. Any college student or person with limited cooking ability can make buttered noodles. All it is is cooked noodles with butter and Parmesan cheese. Fettuccine Alfredo is just adding cream to that buttered noodle classic and really did not feel like I was cooking anything special at all. Did it taste good? Oh yeah. I love buttered noodles, so adding cream did nothing to distract or add to a taste that I already enjoyed.  It was an easy recipe that had all the earmarks of comfort that I needed after a tense weekend of worry.

Now I wish that I loved the Light Cooking Italian cookbook as much as I loved the New Good Housekeeping Cookbook.  I really wish I could say that, but in all honesty, I do not love Light Cooking Italian at all. In fact I kind of wish it had been loaned to a friend and never returned.  There were not a lot of recipes that sounded remotely appetizing to me. Every page had reminders of how many calories and how much a serving size should be, and in a way felt like it was belittling me and my abilities to eat like a sensible adult. I like Italian food and when I think of Italian food, I think if rich vibrant flavors, good wine and pasta in fabulous shapes. For this being an Italian cookbook there was very little pasta  and it made me sad.  However, Light Cooking Italian was in my cookbook arsenal and I had to pick a recipe. When all else fails, make a dessert is my motto.

I had four choices for a dessert, Minted Pears with Gorgonzola, Polenta Apricot Pudding Cake, Tiramisu or Orange Thyme Granita in Cookie Cups.   For me, there were only two choices, since coffee and pears are not something I enjoy. (You do not want to hear my rant against pears.) Deciding that I didn't really didn't want to attempt anything with Anise in it, because a little anise flavor is good but a lot of it is bad. Or at least bad for me.  Polenta Apricot Pudding Cake won by default (page 86).

Looks just like the picture in the book.

I liked the cake. It was dense. It tasted mostly like Apricots, and since apricots aren't a normal in my house it was  welcome change. It was a middle of the road dessert, but was a wonderful vehicle for Chai Honey that was give to me as a gift. The subtle flavors of the honey worked well with the sweetness of the dried apricots.  Will I make it again? I don't know. It didn't wow me, but it didn't repeal me.   I don't know if that one recipe is enough to make me want to keep this cookbook. This book will probably live a life of neglect on my bookshelf for the rest of its days unless someone wants to borrow it, because I have several other pasta and Italian cookbooks in my library.