Category: cream cheese

not quite carbonara

I apologise for that photo, it makes it look really rough. It wasn’t though, honest!

I was driving home on Sunday and was hit by a sudden wave of pasta-longing: I wanted carbonara. I haven’t had any in ages. So that was Monday’s dinner sorted. One small catch though; with my wife about 8 months pregnant barely-cooked egg didn’t seem like the smartest of moves therefore some invention was required. As Dad-Baker pointed out, “If you can make a pasta sauce Look like a Carbonara, Taste like a Carbonara and Smell like a Carbonara, then surely it Must be a Carbonara – even if there are no eggs in it. “ How to change it then?

After some research it seemed like cream cheese was the way to go, not only was it skipping eggs but came with the bonus of avoiding mega fattening cream too. Also added peas as a passing nod to a rounded meal. Mushrooms would also be welcome here for a more alfredo style. The result was very satisfying, definitely ticking all the right carbonara boxes: creamy, cheesy, silky. Ready in no time at all to boot.

Not quite carbonara (serves 2):

5 tagliatelle nests

1 tablespoon garlic oil*

75g pancetta

175g light cream cheese

Grated parmesan, to taste

handful frozen peas

Cook the tagliatelle according to packet instructions. (Give them plenty of space to expand!)

Meanwhile, fry the pancetta in the garlic oil until browned all over.

Add your cream cheese, mashing it up a bit to break it down.

It probably won’t have formed a sauce so ladle out a tablespoonful at a time of your pasta water to thin it until it’s a smooth creamy consistency. Add grated parmesan and season until you’re happy with it.

Add the peas, simmer for a minute more, then toss with the cooked pasta to combine.

*I have a bottle in my cupboard of garlic oil I’ve made – just a few cloves of garlic left in a bottle of fairly-good olive oil. Well worth it – I used up a Christmas gift of oil for this purpose!

chicken cream cheese food pasta

chicken primavera

I follow the ever-efficient @ShortOrderMom on Twitter, and her frugal yet interesting recipes always catch my eye. This one is the primavera style sauce, not really heard of in the UK. It’s something that caught on in the States in 70s, then became kitsch and fell away out of fashion. I’ve heard restaraunts updating the dish of late.

Here’s her penny-saving version: get pasta on the boil while you fry some chicken breast. When that’s browned add frozen mixed veg (not something I’ver ever used but it worked very well here) until defrosted.

While this is all going on I combine cream cheese with milk and Italian salad dressing and warm it through.

Combine in a bowl and you have a very cheap meal. It worked out very tasty, but if I’m honest I could cut this slightly cheaper by buying a cream cheese with garlic & herbs in for a very similar flavour. Still, nice and light yet still tasty. Thanks SOM!

cream cheese food lemon

cheesecake

King of teatime desserts, the New York style cheesecake. I’m not a great sponge-baker so this kind of non-flour dessert works great for me.

One thing I really recommend is a springform cake tin – one with a clasp on the side. It makes getting it out dead easy.

Easy first stage – mix melted butter and broken biscuits (digestives for me) to make a base, and line the greased tin with with this mix. I leave this in the fridge to firm up while I make the batter – which is pretty straightforward. Just mix together caster sugar, cream cheese, lemon zest, two eggs, two more egg yolks, vanilla extract and double cream. Pour this on the biscuits and whack it in a 160C oven in a bain marie. About thirty minutes later it’ll be firm round the edge and wobbly in the middle, after cooling and a couple more hours setting in the fridge you’ll have yourself a firm, creamy, sweet, lemony dessert to die for.

Now someone make me a coffee to have with it…