Stuart's Homemade Alfredo

Let me start off by saying how much I love food. I eat food for all the wonderful flavors and textures. I’ll eat until I’m full and pack on another three helpings just because it tastes so good. Even after the meat sweats set in when dessert is offered, especially if it has peanut butter or a brownie involved. While we’re at it lets make it a la mode. My mouth is already watering and I just ate my dinner. The downside to watching what I am eating, and I mean the amounts not just what is on my plate as I shovel it in, is my love affair with food has been put on hold. It’s now more of a fling.

One of my favorite dishes is alfredo. I loved it so much I learned how to make it myself. I made it for my family too. It was a dish I made once or twice a year. Little did I know how many calories were in the sauce alone. The recipe I was using a serving of sauce (one cup) was 1270 calories. For a male my size that caloric count is around half of my daily calorie allowance to maintain my weight! I knew the sauce was calorie heavy but I only found out how much when I was getting ready to make it for dad. It’s the whipping cream and butter that gets you, both of which dwarf the amount of calories the parmesan cheese contributes. Using myfitnesspal app on my iPhone I’m currently allowed 1850 calories per day in order to make my weight goals.

This left me with only a few choices. I could work out like mad to offset the meal I was going to eat or I could find a way to make it a little lighter on the calorie side of things. The second option seemed the most prudent of the two as I add blackened chicken and shrimp to my alfredo. After talking with my lovely wife we both agreed that alfredo sauce is just a fancy form of mac and cheese I tweaked a recipe to see if it would work and it did. I had half a chicken breast and four shrimp on a bed of jasmine rice (one cup) with ½ cup of sauce and a salad with a raspberry vinaigrette. Grand total calorie count for the meal 530, the sauce alone was 187. It was tasty without all those extra calories and grams of fat. I do a lot of my cooking by taste but the following recipe sets you up to tweak the flavor of the sauce to your taste.

This will make six ½ cup servings.

Ingredients:
• 4 Tbsp Butter
• 4 Tbsp flour
• 3 cups milk (I used 2%)
• 1 ½ tsp garlic (minced or crushed)
• ¾ cup of parmesan
• Salt
• Pepper

Directions:
• Melt the butter in a sauce pan over low heat

• Add the flour to the butter and mix well

• Add the garlic to the flour and butter

• Keeping the heat low, let the mixture cook for about 5 minutes (I read somewhere this reduces the flour taste in the sauce) stirring occasionally. DON’T LET YOUR MIXTURE BURN!!!

• Slowly add the milk to the flour and butter whisking it until smooth.

• Bring the heat up to about medium and let the sauce thicken, stirring frequently

• Add the parmesan cheese to the sauce

• Stir until the cheese is melted, add salt and pepper

As I said before this recipe gets you to the point where you can tweak the seasonings to suit your taste, just keep track of any extra cheese you may add to the mix.