A Lighter Alfredo-Style Sauce for Columbus Day

This year for Columbus Day, I decided to make some northern Italian-style food akin to fettuccine alfredo since Christopher Columbus was was Genoese. But I was trying to think of a way around making it unbelievably bad for you, so I just used a light cream instead of heavy cream and minimized the cheese. I also put some shrimp and broccoli in it. It was still yummy, so here's what you do:

Boil salted water for your fettuccine, and while that's happening, rinse your shrimp, which I then shelled after they were done being cleaned.

From WineAnother Cook

Also, I did a cheat with the broccoli at this point and heated some up in this awesome steamer courtesy of Pampered Chef. I can't stress the awesomeness of this this little device enough. I did this at this phase, because it's less busy than the seasoning that happens later, and I'd rather not be rushed!

From WineAnother Cook

At this point, my pasta was ready, so I put it in the water. Make sure your stir a lot with fettuccine! It's really starchy and sticky.

Now that the shrimp is clean, toss it in a pan with some olive oil on medium high heat. It should only need about a minute per side to be done. Then set it aside on a plate, and put some chopped up garlic in the pan.

From WineAnother Cook

Once the garlic is soft (but not burnt!) pour in some of the light cream and let it get hot and bubbly. At this point, I added a decent amount of powdered garlic to the pan to really add a uniformity to the garlic flavor. I also cracked in some black pepper and some salt. Normally, the cheese you'd put in this dish would salt it up enough, but since I'm only putting a little cheese on at the end, the dish needs salt. The most important thing as you're cooking though is to taste the sauce to see if you like it. If it doesn't taste good now, it never will!

Once it is to your liking, add back in the shrimp and broccoli.

From WineAnother Cook

Then the only cheese you need is what you put on top at the end. This way, you've made a fettuccine alfredo-type dish with zero butter, barely any oil, a lighter cream and less cheese. And you can even feel good about eating your veggies. If you hate broccoli, use peas. If you hate peas, use spinach. Whatever it is you'd like to add some green to your plate.

From WineAnother Cook