Fettucine alfredo was one of my favorite food growing up. It wasn't something that my mom made, but whenever we would go to to dinner, if they had fettucine alfredo on the menu, I would get it. Now I know the dish isn't even Italian, that doesn't really bother me at all, but a huge bowl of the creamy pasta with broccoli and chicken... hmmm! Usually my little stomach could only handle a small portion of the rich dish before asking for a doggy bag and finishing it over the next few days, but it was worth it.

Nowadays, I haven't completely given up on my old favorite, but it's not exactly easy to find over here. Even back in San Francisco, it's one of those dishes I would always consider ordering, but let's be honest, it's not exactly healthy... to say the least.

But when we arrived home from Madrid a few weekends ago and we didn't have much in the fridge, I looked at what we did have and went from there. Half a container of heavy cream, another half of creme fraiche, some whole milk -- items that I would probably would've ended up just throwing away after using the portion I needed for previous dishes, I started thinking Alfredo. We always have Parmesan cheese and I always keep a bag of frozen broccoli on hand so we can have some sort of vegetable even with an empty fridge.

It's been so long since I've had fettucine alfredo and I can't even remember if I've ever made it myself so I started browsing recipes to get an idea of how to make the sauce and in the end just winged it with the various creams I had on hand.

Fettucine Alfredo
4 Tbsp butter
2 garlic cloves, minced
white pepper
1/2c heavy cream
1/4c creme fraiche
1/2c whole milk
3/4 grated Parmesan cheese
1c diced ham
black pepper
crushed red pepper
1 pkg fettucine or angel hair pasta

Bring a large pan of water to a boil, salt and add the pasta. Cook until done, then add to the sauce and mix immediately. I cooked my frozen broccoli in a steamer over the top while the pasta was cooking, worked fine.

In a large saucepan over medium low heat, add the butter and when melted, add the garlic. Next stir in the cream, white pepper, creme fraiche and milk and continue stirring, raise temperature to bring mixture to a simmer. Add the Parmesan cheese and stir often, cooking about 10 minutes, until the sauce has thickened. Stir in one cup diced ham and continue to cook several minutes until heated through.


Stir in the pasta and broccoli, season with black and crushed red pepper and top with fresh parsley.


Results: This turned out surprisingly well considering the random ingredient mix. I used ham as we generally keep a few small packaged of this diced ham in the freezer, but chicken is so good with this. Still obviously not the healthiest dinner, but every once in a while it's okay :)