Recipes

Today I cooked dinner, which was fettucine alfredo.  I use pre-cooked fettucine, which Ziggy now sells in tight clumps, so I make sure to boil it in a lot of water. (I miss the days when they sold it in nests.)

For the alfredo sauce, I use a recipe we got off a milk-themed calendar some twenty years ago.  First you melt three tablespoons of butter, then whisk in three tablespoons of flour. (With a whisk I can take on the world.) Then you heat it till it's sizzling, and add three cups of milk, and half a cup of cream or of more milk.  You heat it till it's boiling, then take it off the heat for five minutes.  Then you add 125 grams of cream cheese, a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of pepper, and a quarter teaspoon each of cayenne pepper and nutmeg.  You heat it again, and when it's boiling you add a cup of grated parmesan cheese.  It's now ready to add to the fettucine.

In the evening I've been baking gingerbread for the TOR fundraiser Sunday.  For that I use a recipe from THE NEW YORK TIMES COOKBOOK.  First you wax an 8" square pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Then you add a tablespoon of vinegar to three-quarters of a cup of milk, and put it aside to curdle.  Then you mix two cups of flour with two teaspoons of baking powder, a quarter teaspoon of baking soda, half a teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons (or a bit less) of ginger, a teaspoon of cinnamon, and a quarter teaspoon of ground cloves.

The next part is where it gets challenging.  You cream a third of a cup of shortening, gradually adding half a cup of sugar and creaming all the time.  Then you add an egg and whip till fluffy. (I personally use my whisk instead of beaters.) Then you add three quarters of a cup of molasses.

(A tip on the molasses:  before measuring it out I put a little oil in the measuring cup--just enough to cover the bottom--and spread it about until it covers the whole inner surface.  The molasses then comes out pretty easily.)

Now you take the milk and the flour and stir them in alternately, a quarter or less at a time.  Then you put the batter in the pan:  I stir it about clockwise, then counter-clockwise, then horizontally, then vertically, then diagonally both ways.  You then bake it for 45 to 50 minutes.