Fettuccine Alfredo.... kind of

I love fettuccine alfredo as much as the next guy. Maybe more! The hearty creaminess. The cheesy wonderment. The versatility of additions to the dish. The ability of the dish to serve as either side dish or main course. Besides the caloric count, what's not to love? :)

I found this posting on Pioneer Woman's site and decided it looked simple enough for anyone, even a foodiestudent, to attempt. Check it out then come back and keep reading :)
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/07/fettuccine-alfredo/

I can do that, right? So here we go.....

I didn't have any fettuccine but I had it's cousin, spaghetti. And I didn't have any heavy cream but I had skim milk. That'll work, right? Keep reading and find out :)

Now, I normally don't mess with a recipe the first time I make it but a pasta dish without vegetables is like cheesecake without the cream cheese. It's just not the same without it :) Plus, I like vegetables and I wanted some in my meal. From left to right we have 4 colours of bell peppers, tomatoes, and red onion. And for extra flavor we have salt & pepper, chives, and parsley.

By the way, if you don't want to grow or buy fresh herbs, these refrigerated bottles of freeze dried herbs are the next best thing. They taste better than dried herbs but have all the convenience of dried herbs. The foodiestudent recommends :)

I normally grate a bunch of cheese at once using the grater attachment on my KitchenAid mixer but today I decided to kick it old school. Plus I bought this grater about 6 months ago and was starting to feel bad that I hadn't used it yet. And yeah, that black strip on the right is the rind from the parmesean. I just couldn't throw it away for the picture I guess LOL.

I diced some peppers which isn't that exciting but I love the bright colours so I had to take a picture. Enjoy :)

This is just the parmesean cheese all grated up in a little bowl. Why did I take a picture of it? Just to show you that I take my own advice sometimes. A couple of posts ago I was kicking myself that I took a picture of diced strawberries in a red bowl. There was no contrast. Here there is contrast. I am happy with this picture :)

I sprinkled some parmesean on the plate, just like pioneer woman told me to. And before you mention my pale plate, pale cheese combination, please note that these are the only plates I have.

Then, because I'm an obedient girl, I poured the melted butter and cream (uh, milk in this case) combination on the plate.

Next came the fettuccine, uh spaghetti. Oooooo, steamy!

And topped with the rest of the parmesean.

I tossed it all together and then...

Topped with the diced peppers, onion, and tomatoes.

Tossed that around (I did lots of tossing) and then....

Topped everything with the parsley and chives.

And the result?.........

Sorry pioneer woman, but this was not as good as I hoped. In PW's defence, my version doesn't even look as good as hers. My theory on why mine wasn't as successful as hers is:

1. I used milk instead of cream. You can tell my sauce isn't nearly as thick as hers.
2. My pasta to sauce ratio is way off. I have way too much pasta for the sauce that I made.
3. The addition of vegetables added complexities not addressed in the original recipe.
   - They were cold which brought the temperature of the entire dish too low to fully melt the parmesean cheese.
   - They also required more salt than the recipe originally called for.
   - And if I didn't have enough sauce for the pasta before the addition of veggies, it was even more lacking after the veggies were added.

At the end of the day, I'm not convinced this recipe is worth trying again. It's too risky a prospect to put the sauce together on the pasta. There is no room for error.

I'd rather make a complete sauce in a saucepan and pour it on the pasta afterwards. Making it that way allows me to perfect the recipe as a separate entity from the rest of the meal. It also allows me to adjust the pasta to sauce ratio based on my preferences of the day.