Tuesday, April 5, 2011

romano and mozzarella

I have a confession...

this past weekend was sort of an Italian feast.

A halfway delicious Italian feast.  :)

I got this crazy idea to try and make Olive Garden's Alfredo Sauce...

and well, it turned out okay, but I think I probably should have gotten the REAL Parmesan cheese instead of just using my Parmesan that comes out of the green, shaky bottle.  Just a thought.  :)

I had this glorious idea to make the Alfredo sauce on Sunday morning so I told Preacher Man that we just HAD to go to the store after church to get some of that fancy cheese so I could make my Alfredo sauce. 

So that's what we did.  I got a fancy block of Romano cheese for around $6 and I almost passed out in the floor when we actually bought it.

  And would you believe that the hubster even talked me into getting some fresh mozzarella as well!?  He really wanted to make some cheese sticks.  We spent $11...just in cheese!  Glory be!  The only thing that I kept on thinking was:
A.  I seriously can't believe we are spending this much on cheese...this is ridiculous....we should put it back!
B.  BUT....This is way cheaper than if we would have really went to Olive Garden.
C..  AND...the mozzarella was buy one, get one...so it actually turned out to be pretty cheap.
and
D.  This is a dream come true!!!!  I watch the Food Network religiously and I've always wanted to go to the fancy cheese section in the grocery store!  I probably could have cried when I thought of this.  :)  Hahaha!

So we did it!  We bought it all!  I felt like we spent a fortune on cheese! But you know what, I don't regret it one bit.  That fancy cheese is glorious!  I mean Reeeaaalllll glorious!  My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it.  Please go find a fancy cheese section at the store and buy some.  You won't regret it!  Ahhhhhh!  :)

So here is how the story went when we got home...

First, we started on the mozzarella sticks.

I got the recipe for this off of Macaroni and Cheesecake's blog and let me just say, they were fantastic!  Definitely worth splurging on!

Here's the line-up:


I cut up the cheese into little strips like so...


Cracked and egg, mixed it up, and then rolled a cheese log around in the egg mixture.


Then I let her roll around in some bread crumbs with thyme and oregano.


And then she went back to the eggs for another coating and then back to the bread crumbs to ensure a nice, yummy, oh so glorious crunch on the outside.

Once that was done, I lined them all up on a greased baking sheet and popped them in the oven.


And would you believe what happened?

They sorta exploded all over the pan!

Hahahahaha....oooppppsss!  Maybe it was a little too long in the oven?  :)


But can I just say that these were SO TASTY!  We dipped them in a tomato sauce flavored with oregano.  Me, oh my!  Please make these today.  Who cares if they explode all over the pan like mine did too!  I'll just keep a closer eye on them next time.  They are definitely worth it!!

For the full recipe and instructions, click here.

Now onto OG's Alfredo sauce. 

Let me just say, if you ever try making this, get the real Parmesan cheese from the fancy cheese section.  If I ever try this recipe again, I will DEFINITELY get it.  Trust me on this!

Here is all of the stuff I used...


That was the first carton of Heavy Cream I'd ever bought in my life....wow!  That stuff is super-duper thick...and totally calorie free!  Whoa!

And this is when I started to feel like a Food Network Star....ahhhhhhhh!!!


I grated cheese with a fancy rind on it!  I'm so glad I took a picture!  I can check this off my bucket list!  Oh the little things in life that I get thrilled by!  (If you think this is funny, please ask me about visiting Sea World for the first time, hahaha!  :) )

I added my one fancy cheese (the Romano) and my cheap cheese (the Parm.) to my cream and whisked away...


Once that was done I got to do another fancy Food Network thing and temper my eggs to put in my sauce.  I added a bit of the warm sauce to my bowl of eggs to let them mesh with the warm temperature of the sauce.  Boy was I feeling fancy at this point!  :)


And of course I cooked the fettuccine....


Unfortunately the pictures end here.  :(  I'm sad to report that my cheap Parmesan cheese didn't do my sauce justice.  It still added a nice flavor, and the sauce was pretty good, but it sure did look pretty gross!  The cheese DIDN'T dissolve into the sauce like it should have so I was left with little clumps of Parmesan cheese all throughout the sauce.  It wasn't worth taking a picture of...trust me!

But I learned my lesson, if I ever want to try and make this again I get the REAL fancy cheese from the store.  Or maybe I'll just stick with only eating Alfredo at Olive Garden!  Ha!

Here's the link to the recipe here.

Hubby and I had a lot of fun in the kitchen on Sunday to say the least.  We will definitely be making the mozzarella sticks again for sure!  :)

Now I think you should go try them too!

A Mozzarella Lover,
The Preacher's Wife


No comments:

Post a Comment