For this month’s column, I decided to write about the lovely dinner I enjoyed at home with my parents for my mom’s birthday.
For our meal, I watched and learned as Brad prepared fettuccine with ham and peas in white wine sauce.
Brad used nice long fettuccine noodles that were boiled for the perfect amount of time—not too thick and chewy, but not so soft that they fell apart.
Next Brad prepared a cream sauce that included olive oil and butter. Once the butter completely melted, he added diced onions to the pan and sautéed them until they were translucent. After that he added the garlic and sautéd for about 30 seconds.
At this time, he added the white wine. After the cream sauce was finished, Brad added the peas plus the salt and pepper.
After the cream sauce was completely finished the ham was prepared next. It was diced and pan cooked, then added to the cream sauce. Now it was time to combine with the noodles where it was all mixed together.
While it was being mixed, lots of Parmesan was added to create a perfect taste.
For our sides, we had garlic toast and my favorite, the zucchini boat. I previously provided the recipe for zucchini boat in this column. Readers may remember that first you stir together cream cheese, Parmesan cheese and bread crumbs. You add this mixture to a hollowed out zucchini. Then top with Parmesan cheese and bake it in the oven to finish it for 15 minutes. There was such a perfect amount of cream cheese that created such a great taste.
The zucchini was nice and crunchy but the cheese topping was smooth which created a great combination.
It was a great dish to have to celebrate my mom’s fantastic birthday. This has to be one of my most favorite at home meals and I can’t wait for everyone else to try it.
Let me know what you think if you read my columns online.
For now, happy eating from Jack the foodie.