Foodie Fridays: Ah, Alfredo!

Hubby has been working late some days, and that usually means I have to cook dinner while minding the toddler at the same time.  Which equates to the simpler the preparation process, the better!  Usually on such days, I resort to cooking pasta (remember the easy chilli tuna pasta recipe that came from mainly cans?).

Since the little boy LOVES mushrooms, I like preparing a mock mushroom "alfredo" sauce for our pasta when I'm pressed for time.  And as its for the whole family and the grown-ups need to watch their     waistlines, I use milk instead of cream (after all, cream doesn't keep very long, and there's always milk in the fridge!).

Please excuse the little hand.  He was excited about having "many many mushrooms!" for dinner.  

Mock mushroom "alfredo" sauce

(serves 2 adults and 1 tiny tummy)

Ingredients: 

:: 1.5 cups milk (use low-fat if cooking for adults, and normal full-cream milk if cooking just for kids)

:: 200 g button mushrooms (sliced)

:: 3 cloves garlic (chopped)

:: Grated cheese (eg. Mozzarella or parmesan)

:: Olive oil

:: Basil or other herbs

Steps: 

1. Heat up olive oil in frying pan, fry garlic for 1 minute.

2. Add mushrooms and fry for another 5 minutes.

3. Pour milk in and leave to simmer for 10 minutes, turn down heat to low once milk starts to bubble.  Add herbs (don't be too generous if cooking for kids), stir.

4. Add cheese (how much to add depends on how thick you want your sauce to be, so experiment! :p), stir, and remove from heat.

DONE!  Usually I'll have the pot of pasta boiling at the same time, and dinner is ready before the boy is able to get into any major trouble.  And there will be steamed veggies or salad on the side.  If you want to up the protein content of the dish, you can use egg pasta (I used tagliatelle).

While this probably won't be something on your dinner menu when you have guests (the sauce would not be as rich and thick as the version using eggs and cream), its an easy creamy sauce to prepare on lazy or busy days.  I like to improvise on this version, and sometimes add cod (or other white fish), or leftover ham, with veggies like carrots, corn and cherry tomatoes.

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Do you have any tried and tested recipes for meals suitable for the whole family?  If you have some easy-to-prepare, healthy recipes, do drop me an email at john(dot)jus(at)gmail(dot)com, with the ingredients, steps, and if possible, a photo of the food!  We'll post the recipes on Fridays, with a link back to your blog if you have one... :)

Blessed weekend!