Fettuccine Alfredo and Fresh Bread with Herbed Butter

Sorry I've been away, not like a lot of people read this anyway. The Tea Party counterprotest has been demanding a lot of my time.

Despite the time suck, I decided today that I *needed* to make homemade bread, herbed butter, and fettucini alfredo with homemade sauce.

See, I've always been the type to either buy crappy cheap jarred alfredo, or expensive still kind of crappy stuff. I never made it myself because for some reason I thought it was hard. IT WAS NOT. I ASSURE YOU IT IS THE EASIEST THING EVER.



1lb package fettuccine
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
2 cloves (minced) or 1/2 tsp granulated garlic
2 1/2 cups light cream
1 1/2 cups shredded parmesan cheese (shred it yourself from a block to save money and have tastier cheese)

1. Boil the fettucini in a big pot of water with salt. Make sure the pot is huge or they'll get stuck together and that's the opposite of fun.

2. While you're waiting on that, melt the stick of butter in a decent sized saucepan on med/lo heat. After the butter's melted, either sautee the minced garlic cloves for a minute or so, or do the easy thing like I did and throw in the granulated garlic. Then add 1 1/2 cups of the cream, stir it for 3-4 minutes until it's hot.

3. When the fettuccine is done, drain and add to the alfredo sauce. Immediately add the last cup of cream and all the parmesan cheese, a little salt and pepper to taste, and stir. It thickens up after a minute or so.

4. EAT IT BECAUSE IT'S DELICIOUS.



So, the bread. In all honesty, it's too lengthy to reproduce the recipe here, so go to Artisan Bread in Five. I haven't conquered it perfectly, but I made a damn decent loaf on my first attempt.

And for the herbed butter which I don't have a picture of because I'm a very subpar blogger:

1. Let a stick of butter soften at room temperature.
2. Get some fresh parsley and chop it up super small. No smaller. No smaller than that. I just eyed it, but I'd say 1/2-1 tablespoon of finely chopped parsley altogether.
3. Mix butter, parsley, and another 1/4 teaspoon of granulated garlic with a mixer on super high speed.

Easy. Super easy. And my god, is it ever good.