Oh, hey, hi! I’m still here. *waves from corner of the kitchen*
Remember me? Yeah, well, I managed to make it through another school year and we are well into our summer (hooray!) and I am already starting to feel the stress of the next school year. Today, however, I blissfully ignored it and read a book. A whole book. My children watched a lot of DVD’s and ate cake and applesauce and I read. a. book.
That has nothing to do with food, except for the cake, of course (more on that, later, I hope), but I had to say it. Gleefully.
But that’s not what I came here to post about this time. This time, I wanted to post about a recipe that has become a quick, easy standby. One that works when I don’t feel like cooking and one that works when I have very little food in the house. It’s even something that 3/4 of the people I usually cook for will happily eat.
It’s spaghetti carbonara. Yes, I know, it sounds fancy and incredibly unhealthy but it’s really not so much either of those things. I use Ruth Reichl’s recipe and she refers to it as “bacon and eggs with pasta instead of toast.” I’ve found that the recipe is pretty flexible. I almost never measure my cheese, I sometimes add an extra egg or egg yolk, or sometimes add some of the pasta water to make it slightly more creamy. I made it most recently when my dad was visiting and his response was that it was delicious and that he’d had it the last two times he visited and this time was the tastiest. I guess I make it more often than I’d thought. But maybe I’m just…. perfecting my technique?
At any rate, it’s delicious and comforting and not super heavy. An easy meal to whip up in a short period of time and most people seem pretty impressed with it.
Ruth Reichl’s Spaghetti Carbonara
Ingredients
1 pound spaghetti
1/4-1/2 pound thickly sliced bacon (don’t use maple flavored….ick)
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 large eggs
1/2-1 cup grated parm cheese, plus extra for on top
black pepper
Directions
Get a large pot of water, salt it and bring it to a boil to cook your spaghetti. Once it’s boiling, add the spaghetti and cook for 8-10 minutes or whatever your package of spaghetti recommends. While it’s cooking, you can get everything ready.
Get out your bacon. I keep my bacon in the freezer. Yes, I am the only person in the world who isn’t obsessed with bacon and who actually doesn’t use a whole package at a time. But keeping it in the freezer makes it easier to slice, as it’s less sticky and fragile. Plus, then I always have bacon.
Get your bacon out and get ready to slice.
Slice into thick-ish, but small pieces.
You will also need garlic. I keep my peeled garlic in the freezer. Are you seeing a pattern here? If you let it thaw on your cutting board for about a minute, it’s super easy to smash/chop. You don’t have to do that for this recipe, whole cloves will be fine.
Get your bacon into a pan and cook over medium-high heat.
You want it to be brown and cooked but not too crispy.
Add your garlic in- I always sort of smush my garlic once it’s in the pan. But Ruth recommends that you take it out before mixing it into the pasta. I always leave mine in both because I am lazy and because I like cooked garlic.
Crack your eggs into a large bowl.
I used an extra egg and yolk in this version because my eggs were medium sized but 2 large eggs will be plenty. Add the pepper (a few grinds) and the cheese.
Whisk it all together.
Once your spaghetti is ready, scoop out a cup of the cooking water and then drain your spaghetti. You have a few choices. Ruth says to put the hot pasta into the eggs and to mix thoroughly, “the heat of the spaghetti will cook the eggs and turn them into a sauce.” Then add your bacon and toss again.
I, on the other hand, tend to toss it all in at once, starting with the bacon and then the pasta. You can drain the fat from the bacon before you add it, if you want to, but you will lose a great deal of flavor that way. Better to just add it all into the pasta.
Mix it well, making sure to coat all the pasta with the egg/cheese/bacon mixture. I sometimes add a little bit of that reserved pasta water to help with the coating. A few tablespoons should do it- you won’t need the whole cup.
Serve immediately. Add more cheese on top if you like. Gobble it up and tell me that isn’t the easiest yummy pasta ever.
