I went on the keto diet several weeks ago and bought a pint of heavy cream to keep up my fat intake. It was mainly used to add fat to my eggs in the morning. All I needed was a tablespoon per omelet. It wasn’t long after I started the keto diet that I quit because I missed carbs so much. The heavy cream was then left untouched. It’s going to expire soon, and I still had more than half the bottle left. So I went on the good old internet to find out what I can do with a bunch of leftover heavy cream. One thing that came up was alfredo sauce.
I had to look through several recipes since I didn’t have all the exact ingredients from any one method. But it looked like the main things I needed were heavy cream, butter, and cheese. I had some penne pasta in the cabinet, so I decided to make Penne Alfredo. I wanted to make it a little healthier, so I decided to get some broccoli to put in the pasta.
My recipe is not exact because I ended up adding things as I went. But for the alfredo sauce I started with:
One and a half cups of heavy cream (cause that’s what I had left)
¼ cup of butter
One and a half cups of shredded parmesan cheese
One clove of garlic chopped
I started by melting the butter in a saucepan at low heat. Once the butter melted, I added in all the heavy cream. I let it simmer for about 7 minutes stirring as I went.
Next, I added the cheese and garlic. Stir until the cheese melts into the mixture. It was at this point that I noticed the sauce was still yellow from the butter. So I added about another half cup of parmesan cheese. I waited until this extra cheese melted.
Now my sauce was ready. So I set it to the side.
In the meantime, I was cooking about half a package of penne pasta (about three cups) in a pot of water.
I also had to steam the broccoli. Admittedly, I have never steamed vegetables before, but I assumed that meant you just put the broccoli in a pot of boiling water until it doesn’t taste raw anymore. I can’t remember how long I kept it in there. I just kept trying small pieces of broccoli until I thought it was acceptable. Your goal is to cook it long enough to get the raw bite off.
When the pasta and broccoli were done, I drained the water from both pots. I then combined both of them into one pot.
Finally, I can start pouring my beautiful alfredo sauce onto the pasta and broccoli. Now here is where I messed up. I had left some pasta water at the bottom of the pot. I didn’t think it mattered since it was probably only a cup of water. But it ended up making my sauce VERY watery.
So to fix this, I turned the heat back on and stirred so some of that water could evaporate. It was working, but it was taking too long, and I was getting hungry. So I added more parmesan cheese to “absorb the water.” Stupid idea. DO NOT DO THAT. The cheese doesn’t “absorb the water.” Instead, it will clump together, and you’ll have random curds of parmesan cheese in the pasta. I mean, that’s fine with me cause I love cheese, but it did not fix the problem.
If your sauce ends up too watery, continue stirring over heat until the water evaporates. Don’t be impatient like me.
Anyway, that’s how I made penne alfredo. Despite the little mishap, it was pretty delicious.
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