Alfredo sauce, from me to you

I have 3 words to describe last week: What a WEEK! Man, I never fully realized how difficult moving would be - UHaul trucks, storage, having a shortage of help (but wonderful friends that did all they could to help out at the last minute). Lots of things went wrong, but the end result worked out fine - plus, I'm finally out of housing "limbo": looking at places, but not having anything actually secured. Since last summer, I've really been getting a taste for what the real world is like; renting an apartment and paying bills for the first time was quite an experience. Through all of the tears, headaches, and even slight rage at times, I've had fantastic people as a support system, and parents that were very concerned and wanted to make sure that I had what I needed. In addition, I've learned a lot about what NOT to do the next time around. Thank goodness it's over with, and I can relax a little bit before I move again into my new place (yay!!!).

In the meantime, I tried thanking the people that helped me out by making them a massive spaghetti dinner; although it didn't work out, I'm going to try again when I move next week. Although I couldn't make everything from scratch (either due to time, or expense of ingredients), one thing I did want to make was my special Alfredo sauce, which I found to be surprisingly easy to pull together. Later in the summer, I hope to experiment with a tomato sauce but that's for another post.

This version is much tastier than the usual storebought brand, and is a little bit healthier because you know exactly what's going into it. Essentially, this is a béchamel sauce made with milk and enhanced with parmesan cheese; substitute with cheddar cheese for the perfect mornay sauce for mac & cheese!! To make it, you need 4 ingredients (not counting pepper), and about 10 minutes - that's it! Keep in mind that salt isn't necessary to add here, because the cheese has salt in it already.

My Alfredo Sauce

1 tablespoon Roasted Garlic butter, softened

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1/2 cup of whole milk (or light cream if you prefer)

1/4 cup of parmesan cheese, or more to taste

Pepper to taste

1. Preheat a medium saucepan on medium high heat; add the garlic butter. Meanwhile, cook the accompanying pasta and reserve about 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking liquid.

2. Once the butter has melted, add the flour and stir together vigorously to form a roux; when the mixture turns a very light brown (blonde) color, add the cream and continue stirring to work out the lumps.

3. Cook the sauce until the cream has reduced and the roux has melted into the sauce; add the cheese and stir some more. Add about 1/4 tsp of pepper, taste, then add more if needed. If the sauce is too thick at this point, add some of the pasta cooking liquid to thin it out.

4. Once the sauce is the right consistency, plate your pasta and pour the sauce over top. Stir well, then enjoy!

A little messy, but SOOOOOO good - yummmmm!!