Shrimp Alfredo with Cottage Cheese

There is a dairy that still delivers that we were introduced to shortly after we moved to this area.  A representative had a booth set up at a farmer's market in one of the local cities.  Of course she had samples and was signing people up for delivery.  I tried the whole milk and the chocolate milk and was blown away.  The whole milk was the best tasting milk and closest to raw milk I've come across.  As a result, we have a standing order consisting of whole milk, 2% milk, 1% and 4% cottage cheese, and eggs that get delivered each week.  If you live in an area where Oberweis delivers you are lucky and should look into getting your milk through them.


I used to take the 4% cottage cheese to work and eat it throughout the week.  Due to a couple of office moves I'm not eating near as much as I used to.  Since I had forgotten to cancel the 4% cottage cheese from the order for a few weeks we ended up with way too much 4% cottage cheese on hand.  One evening the good wife declared that I need to eat more cottage cheese or find a way to cook with it.


I looked online for cooking with cottage cheese and found some bread recipes that I'm wanting to try.  I had thought about using it for a pasta sauce and had it planned out when I decided to Google cottage cheese pasta sauce.  I found plenty of recipes for making an Alfredo type sauce using cottage cheese but they all called for low fat cottage cheese and either 1% or 2% milk.  You know Uncle T doesn't play that way.  In the end, I went with the plan I already had and it turned out great if I do say so myself.


Shrimp Alfredo


1 - 1.5 lb peeled deveined shrimp, large 31-35
1 recipe fresh pasta or 1 lb dried fettuccini
1 cup whole milk
16 oz 4% cottage cheese
3 Tbs butter
3 large cloves garlic, sliced
3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 Tbs olive oil
salt
pepper
nutmeg
garlic powder


Sauce


Melt butter in a pot and add the garlic.  Cook until the edges of the garlic turn golden.  Add the milk and bring to a simmer.  Add the cottage cheese and stir to mix well.  Bring to a simmer and add the parmesan cheese and stir to combine.  To help speed the melting of the cheese use an immersion blender to break up the cottage cheese.  Season with a pinch of nutmeg, a pinch of pepper, and a pinch of salt and stir.  Once the cheeses are melted keep the sauce on low heat until everything else is ready.


Fettuccini


If making fresh pasta, cut the noodles and cook in heavily salted water.  Prepare dried fettuccini according to the manufacturer's instructions.  Time the pasta to be almost done at the same time the shrimp are almost done.


Shrimp


Remove the tails from the shrimp and season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder before you start the sauce.  Once the sauce is done, heat a large skillet and add the olive oil.  Once the olive oil is hot add the shrimp.  When the shrimp are half done, turn them over to finish cooking.


Once the shrimp have been turned over remove the fettuccini from the pot and add to the skillet.  Don't worry about any extra pasta water that gets in the skillet.  Pour in half the sauce and stir to combine.  Keep adding sauce a little at a time until all the pasta and shrimp have a light coat of sauce.  I had about 1/3 of the sauce left.  Once all the components are mixed it is time to eat.  Serve and enjoy.  Makes 4 servings.

Shrimp Alfredo made with Cottage Cheese

I had sauce left over because we don't like to have the shrimp and pasta swimming in pool of sauce.  If you like lots of sauce then add it all.  My left over sauce will be used in a potato soup so be on the look out for that in the future.


I used my immersion blender to help things along but it is not necessary.  The cottage cheese and parmesan cheese will melt while you stir but will take longer.  If you want to speed things up and don't have an immersion blender carefully pour the sauce into a regular blender to reduce the size of the curds then return the sauce to the pot.


Do be sure to use good parmesan cheese for this.  If you use pre-grated cheese make sure it is a good quality parmesan.  If it is sitting out on the store shelves don't get it, look in the dairy cooler.  Of course grating a wedge of parmesan would yield the best sauce.  I use a good quality grated parmesan that I find in the dairy cooler.


This is a rich creamy sauce that is still lighter than a traditionally made Alfredo sauce made with heavy cream.  If you want to try it with low fat milk and 1% cottage cheese go ahead but I'll not guarantee the results.


Give this a try and let me know what you think.  I do believe you'll enjoy it.


Uncle T

Fun with Fermentation - Giardiniera

Giardiniera is an Italian/Italian American relish of pickled vegetables typically done in either vinegar or oil.  It can be found in hot or mild varieties.  Depending on where you are seems to determine how it is used.  The Italian version is eaten as an antipasto or with a salad.  In the US, it also gets used as toppings for Italian beef or sausage sandwiches in Chicago.  Some people even use it in pasta.


This is one of those foods that can basically be used/eaten however you wish and it will be good.  The good wife likes it and has been wanting some.  OK, the good wife likes just about any pickled vegetable but that's beside the point.  Since lacto-fermentation is a form of pickling I thought it would be a good thing to make some rather than buy a jar.


I went to the condiment aisle to look at some jars of giardiniera to see exactly what was in the commercial varieties.  The only thing they had that I didn't use was olives.  We could have bought some olives to add but I wasn't sure how or if they would affect the fermentation so we did without.


Since we will eat it out of the jar or as a component of a charcuterie and cheese meal I chose to cut the vegetables in good sized chunks.  If we want to top a sandwich with is we can chop it up some more.  What I ended up using made two quarts.


Lacto-fermented Giardiniera


1 head cauliflower
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
2 stalks celery
3 medium carrots
1 head garlic, optional
2 - 4 hot peppers, optional
4 tsp salt, non-iodized
4 cups water, non-clorinated


Boil enough water to fill the quart jars and let them sit until ready to pack the vegetables in.  Separate the cauliflower into bite sized florets and place in a large bowl.  Cut the bell peppers into 3/8 inch x 2 inch strips and add to the bowl.  Cut the celery into 3/8 - 1/2 inch pieces and add to the bowl.  Cut the carrot on the diagonal into 3/8 - 1/2 inch pieces and add to the bowl.  Slice the peppers, if using and add to the bowl.  Separate and peel the garlic cloves and set aside.  Thoroughly mix the contents of the bowl.  Dump the hot water out of the quart jars.  Start putting the vegetable mixture in each jar adding the garlic cloves to equally distribute. Pack them tight and leave space at the top.  Mix the salt and water to make your brine and fill to the rim.  Put the lid on but don't crank it down hard, fermentation gas and some liquid needs to be able to escape.  Put jars in a pan to catch overflow and put in a warm place in your house while keeping them out of direct sunlight.  In 7 - 14 days, temperature and taste depending, you'll have some tasty fermented giardiniera.  This batch was good at 12 days.

Quart jars of vegetables ready to start fermenting

Once the desired level of flavor is reached, tightly cap the jars and put them in the refrigerator.  Putting them in the refrigerator will slow/stop the ferment and will help maintain the texture of the vegetables.  These will not be super crunchy but you can possibly help preserve some of the crispness by adding some tannin to the mix in the form of oak or grape leaves.  I didn't bother with that and the peppers ended up pretty soft.


The vegetables need to stay submerged during the entire ferment else you run the risk of mold development.  If they are tight packed they may stay submerged on their own.  If not use a weight of some sort to keep them under the brine.  In my gallon jars of sour kraut I use a ziplock bag filled with the brine to keep the cabbage submerged.


Some people call for 1 Tbs salt to 2 cups water which is slightly more salt than I use.  I find, with softer vegetables anyway, that the end result is a bit too salty to my taste.  The primary purpose of the salt is inhibit undesirable bacteria until the lactobacillus has taken off. 


One of the side effects of pickling garlic this way is that it can turn blue or green.  This is perfectly normal and it is safe to eat.  The color change is just a chemical reaction between a couple of enzymes found in garlic or between one of those and the salt.  There may be no color change at all.  If there are no bad spots on the garlic and you don't bruise it when peeling you have a better chance of it staying its natural color.  I had to cut out small bad spots on a few cloves so I got some blue garlic.


In addition to being tasty, lacto-fermented foods are high in probiotic bacteria which we all need.  Supposedly, these bacteria have a whole host of benefits that range from helping your skin look good to weight loss.  They do help keep your digestive tract healthy by maintaining a large variety of microorganisms in your gut.


If you don't like this mix, that's OK.  Select the vegetable/vegetables you like at start fermenting.  You'll get some tasty food and if you share you get to tell them you made it.  Give them a try and let me know how you like them.


Uncle T

Farfalle (Bow-tie Pasta) with Shrimp and Asparagus

Since it is spring and the season for asparagus I try to use it in as many meals as possible while the prices are low.  We like asparagus with  pasta anyway so it was a natural choice.  Something else I'm going to try with asparagus is lacto fermenting so look for that in the not too distant future.  Once using the asparagus in a pasta dish was settled on, I had to decide what I would add to it and which pasta to use.  Then the idea of farfalle and shrimp popped in my head and I was off and running.   My inspiration came from an item offered for sale to the military for use in Dining Facilities.  That item is a boil in the bag farfalle with shrimp in a butter sauce.


I did a Google search and only found one recipe for farfalle with shrimp and asparagus and it used a tomato based sauce.  I wanted the flavors of the shrimp and asparagus to shine rather than being reduced or overwhelmed by tomato flavor.  A butter sauce seemed to be the answer.


Making fresh farfalle was an interesting experience to say the least.  I'll probably do it again though I don't know that I'll make it fresh every time.  Like all fresh pasta, it is a bit time consuming and probably should have  taken more time.  I say that because the sizes of the farfalle were inconsistent.  To fix that I would need to use a ruler, though that wouldn't add too much time.  Then, once they are all cut you have to go through and pinch them all in the middle to form the proper shape.  That part went well even though some did open up a bit in the water.  I ended up using half of the pasta dough to make the farfalle and the rest was cut into spaghetti to cook and use later.  The half recipe made enough farfalle that the final dish made two suppers for the good wife and me.  After we finished our meal the first night, I put the picture on and caption on Facebook and my mother asked what farfalle was so I added the common US name in the title of this post.


Farfalle with Shrimp and Asparagus


4 servings dried farfalle or equivalent fresh pasta
1 lb asparagus
1 lb 21 - 25 size shrimp, peeled with the tails off
6 Tbs butter, I used salted
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt
pepper


Remove the tough lower part of the asparagus stalks and cut the remaining part into bite size lengths, about 1.5 inches.  Melt 4 Tbs butter in large skillet and add the asparagus and garlic when the butter starts to foam.  When the asparagus is partially cooked, about 3 minutes, add the shrimp and season with salt and pepper.  Stir to combine.  The pasta should be almost done about the time the shrimp are almost cooked through.  With the fresh pasta I added the pasta to the boiling water immediately after adding the shrimp to the skillet.  When the shrimp are almost done, remove the farfalle from the boiling water and add to the skillet; don't worry if it is not completely drained.  Add the remaining 2 Tbs butter to the skillet and stir to combine.  Let it sit on medium heat until the last butter is melted then stir to distribute evenly.  The butter should combine with the pasta water that came with the farfalle to make a light buttery sauce.  Serve with some grated parmesan cheese and hot crusty bread and enjoy.

Shrimp and Asparagus ready for the Farfalle

If using dried pasta this meal comes together quickly so it makes for a good mid-week meal.  If you buy peeled deveined shrimp, by the time the water for the pasta has come to a boil you can have the prep work done.  Of course, the prep work only consists of pinching off the shrimp tail and cutting up the asparagus.  Get a good loaf of bread from bakery on the way home and you are good to go. 

My plate of goodness

If you want to be a bit healthier you can substitute some good olive oil for the butter at the end.  You know I didn't do it that way.  I think some good extra virgin olive oil would add a nice green note that would compliment the asparagus.


Give this a try some evening and I think you'll be pleased with the result.  Remember, cooking shouldn't be a chore so experiment and have fun in the kitchen.  Let me know what you think of this dish.


Uncle T