Deviled Eggs

Oh my. How did I let myself go so long without posting again? By way of apology, let me explain that I've been on three trips in the last month and a half (Boston, DC, and Indy for my little sister's wedding) and am now working on editing wedding photos while also catching up on actual work. I guess time has just gotten away from me, and I apologize for leaving you hanging for so long. It seems like it comes to this every few months, unfortunately, but you know, life gets in the way sometimes.

Spring is in full force here in Hampton Roads. (Actually, when we came back from the wedding, it seemed like we had skipped spring entirely and gone straight into summer. when we left it was in the 50s, and when we came home, it was seriously in the mid to high 80s.) With spring, comes picnic foods--ham sandwiches, potato salad, macaroni salad, and deviled eggs. I personally am not a fan of deviled eggs, but Justin loves them. Being the wonderful wife that I am, I do occasionally make them for him. This recipe is our attempt at recreating his mother's deviled eggs. She doesn't use a recipe, of course. She just adds the ingredients until it tastes right. Someday I'm going to use a food scale to weigh the containers before and after to figure out her exact recipe, lol, but I haven't done that yet and so this is as close as it gets.

Alfredo Toss

Whenever we were craving Italian but didn't want to go out, my mom used to make one of two things: her spaghetti or her alfredo. The alfredo recipe was quick and easy, so it made for a great weeknight dinner. When she put Italian sausage in it, we were really in heaven. However, while it taste greats, it's not really alfredo in the most traditional sense. The flavors are all there, but there isn't really an alfredo sauce. Instead my mom would toss fettuccini together with garlic, heavy whipping cream, melted butter, and parmesan cheese (the kind from a can/plastic jar, not the real stuff). The result tasted a lot like alfredo but didn't require you to go through the trouble of making a bechamel sauce and melting in all the cheese.

Justin and I recently visited a friend in Boston and decided to cook dinner for the three of us. Even though it's been years since I've had my mom's alfredo, for whatever reason that's what I thought of when trying to decide what to cook. However, now that I'm older, I don't love the original recipe quite as much as I did as a kid. I'm not a huge fan of the texture of all that powdery parmesan, and my stomach hates me if I eat that much butter or heavy cream. I did what any logical person would have done--I adapted it. Replace the canned parmesan with the real thing. Replace the heavy whipping cream with half-and-half and cut down the amount used. Leave out the butter. The resulting recipe gives you the alfredo flavor you're looking for but with much less trouble. As a bonus, it feels a lot lighter, too, especially if you throw in some veggies.