Fettuccine Alfredo.... to the extreme!

I made a couple of Alfredo sauce recipes a few weeks ago and found one that I really enjoyed. You can read about it on the entry called Fettuccine Alfredo... part 2.

So now it's time to raise the stakes. Can the sauce handle being baked with cheese a la Boston Pizza?

We'll start with some individual casserole dishes. You can use a larger one for a family meal but Vince & I wanted different additions to our pasta so we decided to make individual meals. I don't know if it was necessary but I sprayed them with non-stick spray. If nothing else, it'll ensure that cleanup will be easier.

This is what I wanted to add to my baked fettuccine alfredo. It's a mixture of diced bell peppers (various colours), sliced onions, broccoli, celery, and green onions. The colours are so pretty in the bowl and I love how they are reflected in the shiny sides of the bowl :)

Cooking the noodles and alfredo sauce. Yum yum yum.

I made the alfredo sauce with 2 cups of half n half this time instead of 2 1/2 cups of heavy cream. Unless you are trying to induce a heart attack, I strongly recommend making this change. I preferred the lighter texture of the sauce but there was no compromise to the flavor.

I also doubled the required amount of cream cheese from 2 tablespoons to about 4 tablespoons... but that was just because that's what I had left in the package and didn't want to re-wrap a wee morsel of cream cheese to put back in the fridge.

I drained the pasta and added it to the veggie mix........

.....and poured the sauce on top.

I followed my own advice from my previous post on the sauce and let it simmer for a while to thicken it. It worked but I think it would be okay to add a little flour in the form of a roux if you wanted it even thicker. Just be careful not to overdo it as it could get pasty.

Toss it all around until the sauce evenly coats the pasta and vegetables. This was easier said than done as the veggies didn't want to mix with the long strands of pasta. It would be easier to toss with a smaller pasta shape such as shells or bowtie pasta or macaroni.

I divided the pasta-veggie mix into the casserole dishes. You can see here how some of the dishes got more veggies than others due to how they didn't mix together too easily. You can also see that one of my oval casserole dishes became a rectangle. How did that happen??????

I topped the dishes with some shredded mozzarella and shredded parmesan cheese then placed one in the toaster oven (perfect when cooking for one). It baked for about 30 minutes at 350 then I turned the dial to broil and cooked it for another 5 minutes or so. Watch it carefully as it'll brown very quickly in the toaster oven.

I pulled it out of the oven just when the cheese was getting toasty brown... so yummy. A little sprinkle of parsley and I'm ready to dig in. Was it as tasty as it looks?

Uh, yeah. It really was. The first few bites I wasn't too sure about because the sauce was very liquidy. It thinned as it cooked in the oven. However, after I'd eaten about 1/3 of it I noticed that the sauce was getting much thicker and sticking to the pasta and veggies better. Therefore, I think the recipe would be perfect if you let it sit for about 5 minutes to let the sauce come together and thicken after taking it out of the oven.

Enjoy making a pasta dish that rivals Boston Pizza. If the foodiestudent can do it then you know you can too! :)