Into the Woods

Who doesn’t like an Alfredo? You can no more not like an Alfredo than you can not like a doughnut, or a potato chip. Though heavy cream is not as deprecated as it once was, it still seems pretty decadent. But because I am a decadent person, I always stock Organic Valley cream. I use it in my morning coffee. My half & half days are over. The cream is always there in the fridge in case I take a notion to make homemade ice cream. And of course I use it in wicked cream sauces. I make a beautiful faux-Bernaise with cream rather than a true Hollandaise (though I am resolved to be quicker to make real Hollandaise sauces and real specialty mayonnaises with, say, olive oil. We Southerners love our mayonnaise.

One way to diminish the sheer decadence of Alfredo sauces is to use spaghetti squash as the pasta. It just so happens that spaghetti squash cooks excellently in the new steam oven. It’s surprising, really, what a satisfying substitute spaghetti squash is for the real thing. Alfredo sauce over spaghetti squash is a very low-glycemic meal that eats (as we say in the South) as good as a high-carb meal.

This Alfredo was made with garlic and fresh tomato, topped with roasted asparagus. I’m using three modes of cooking here — the steam oven, plus the grill, plus a saucepan on the stovetop. It’s thrilling to have multiple modes of cooking just a few steps apart. The grill is on the deck, and the door to the deck is just to the right of the kitchen stove and steam oven. I don’t know why I waited so long to upgrade the kitchen. Cheap, I guess.

The tomato, by the way, was a gift from a friend who is a retired agricultural extension agent for the county. I count two former, and one current, agricultural extension agents among my friends. Former and current agricultural extension agents make excellent friends. Ken is in Alaska this summer, so there is absolutely no glory in the abbey’s garden this year.