Smoked Chicken Alfredo - from scratch!

This is a really simple recipe. No one wants to use Alfredo sauce from a bottle when you can make it from scratch - AND - this recipe is so simple - anyone can do it. I learned this from my Aunt Sandra. She has some serious Italian roots - so deep I'd have to kill you to tell you the whole truth so forgettaboutit!

So here's the recipe - make it yourself and impress the ladies! Never buy Alfredo Sauce from a bottle again!

Here we go:

Smoked Chicken:

• 2 - 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Your favorite rub (I used tarragon, mint, garlic powder, and marjoram). Some rosemary could also be nice.
• Smoke the chicken until done, wrap in foil and rest until the remaining sauce and noodles are done.

Alfredo Sauce:





Grate a wedge of Parmesan cheese.

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
• 1 tablespoon of minced garlic (I use minced garlic from a jar - it's so much easier)
• Couple of splashes of cheap white wine

Sautee this on a medium heat until the garlic is browned.




Get the noodles started - you can use spaghetti or angel hair - whatever you prefer. I add a splash of olive oil and salt to the water - the olive oil helps the noodles NOT stick together and the salt raises the specific gravity of the water for a higher boiling point so the noodles cook hotter.

You can see the garlic turning a bit brown as they cook.


Add in about 1 cup of Heavy Whipping Cream - that's right - Heavy Whipping Cream. This is a low fat recipe.

Once the Whole Whipping Cream comes to a boil - start adding in the grated Parmesan cheese - SLOWLY. Wait until the cheese you've already added in is already melted into the sauce before you add more!

The noodles should take between 8 - 10 minutes to cook and the sauce should finish up around the same time if you started to make the sauce as soon as you've added to noodles to the boiling water.

Go ahead and dice the chicken into small cubes while the sauce and noodles are cooking. Make sure someone is continuously stirring the sauce!

Nice sized pieces - not too big - not too small. Nice dry rub on the meat - this will add some flavor to the meat in the meal.

Noodles, meat, sauce - Oh Boy! Now that's some good eatin'!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Stuffed Bell Peppers.

I'll be the first one to admit that Stuffed Bell Peppers sounds like something my mom used to make. Chop the top off and stuff with some type of rice and hamburger mixture. This recipe updates the idea a bit and although not super manly - every once in a while - you have to cook something for the ladies that isn't just meat stuffed with more meat.

I'll spare you a pictures of prepping the mix because it's pretty boring but here's a list of ingredients.

• 3 large Bell Peppers
• 2 (previously smoked) chicken breasts
• 1 bunch (about 10) quartered radishes
• 1 bunch of cilantro
• 1 can of garbanzo beans (it's what I had in the cupboard)
• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• 1 cup of shredded cheese

Spices included some black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder and a dash of garlic salt.

You can modify the ingredients if you are trying for a specific flavor profile - for example you could use feta cheese , yogurt (instead of sour cream) and add some fresh mint and rosemary for a Greek type flavor.

I cut a triangle shaped opening out of the top of each of the peppers and diced the removed piece and added it to the mixture.

I smoked these at 250 F for about 45 minutes. Since all the ingredients are already cooked there is no internal temp goal. You just want all the cheese to melt and the flavors to mix up. Even after 45 minutes, the pepper itself was pretty crunchy and the garbanzo beans also added some crunch.

You can cook this on a gas grill by turning on the hot side flame as LOW as possible (you know where the hot spot is) and put some foil on the side as far away from the hot side as possible. Put a little olive oil on the foil so the pepper doesn't stick to the foil. If you have a temp guage on the hood of you grill, see if you can get it around 250F. For the last 10 minutes, put the peppers directly on the grate in the middle of the grill but still not direclty over the hot spot / flame on portion - so you can get some grill marks and soften up the pepper shell a bit. Put the bread direclty on the grate that you just removed the foil from (the coolest portion - furthest away from the direct flame).

I threw in a baguette with some garlic and butter for the last 10 minutes to go with the peppers.

You can see the colors came out pretty nice and the fresh cilantro diced and radishes chopped into the mix really added some nice flavors.

You can serve this split open with some bread. Look pretty nice!