Spaghetti Carbonara

Great pasta recipe which is super quick – under 20 minutes.

  • bacon
  • fresh basil
  • Parmesan
  • heavy cream
  • egg
  • spaghetti
  1. Cook the pasta (about a pound).
  2. As soon as you start the water for the pasta, cook the bacon (chopped into small pieces) until it begins to soften, 4-5 minutes.
  3. Add a generous cup heavy cream.
  4. Simmer for 7 minutes stirring frequently, until the cream begins to thicken.
  5. Add the egg, stir in very well and stir frequently for 2 minutes.
  6. Add a cup of Parmesan a stir it in, turn the heat off.
  7. Add the basil (about 2 cups).
  8. Add the pasta.

Beef Marinara

I love simple, tomato-based spaghetti recipes. Nearly everybody likes them, they’re easy to make delicious, you can make them in big quantities for little money, and they taste even better as leftovers. After years of winging it, I’ve found myself coming back again and again to an adaptation of this Red Wine and Rosemary Marinara from Cooking Light.

Ingredients (my way):

  • Olive oil
  • One medium onion, chopped
  • 5 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3/4lb lean ground beef
  • 1 green bell pepper
  • 1 cup red wine, preferably dry
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 2 tsp dried basil
  • 1 tsp dried rosemary
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper (or more, to heat taste)
  • 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
  • 1 6oz can no-salt-added tomato paste

Directions:
Stir-fry the onion in olive oil until almost clear. Add garlic, stir fry about 45 seconds or until fragrant, then add ground beef. Stir fry until beef is cooked through, then add green pepper and stir fry until pepper is just beginning to soften (it’ll cook the rest of the way as the sauce simmers).

Add the rest of the ingredients, wine through tomato paste. Take it easy on the honey- it adds a nice golden sweetness, but it can be really overpowering. 1tbsp is actually half the amount called for in the original recipe and that’s plenty.

Let it simmer at least 20 minutes, or until it thickens. I recommend letting it simmer for a minimum of an hour to let the flavors really mingle. Serve it over spaghetti or linguine, with red wine, salad and/or garlic bread on the side.

Singapore Mai Fun

curry noodles with shrimp Work’s been very busy for both of us since February began, so we haven’t been cooking a lot and certainly haven’t been blogging. To begin catching up: Singapore Mai Fun, aka curry noodles with shrimp, from Cooking Light. Primary ingredients are shrimp, thin rice noodles, bell pepper, green onion, egg, with peanut oil, garlic, and curry powder for predominant flavors. FYI, “mai fun” refers to a type of rice noodle, but any thin rice noodle will work.

Things I would or did change: We skipped the chicken and used a pound of shrimp in order to make it pescatarian. Definitely make sure you use the peanut oil for cooking – it’s subtle, but contributes deliciously. And be aware of the heat level of the curry powder you use because that will dictate the heat of the whole dish. Also, it came out pretty salty. We forgot to get no-salt-added chicken broth, so that probably didn’t help, but I might consider reducing the amount of salt you add either to the noodle water or the dish itself.

Would I make it again: Definitely. Quick and easy, relatively healthy, and delicious.

Eggplant Tomato Rigatoni

We still had half an eggplant leftover from the Ratatouille, so last night I decided to try out a RealSimple recipe for Rigatoni with Sautéed Eggplant and Tomato (key ingredients are in the title plus fresh mint) with a side of A’s delicious Caesar salad and some crunchy garlic bread. With help, it took about 35 minutes of continuous activity. Alone, I would have prepped the pasta ingredients, then gotten the bread all the way to the baking stage before starting to cook anything else.

Helpful additional notes: I followed RealSimple’s recipe for crispy garlic bread rather than use my old technique (baking minced garlic and butter straight into the bread), and really liked it. Infusing olive oil with garlic then brushing it on bread was definitely a better way to get the flavor thoroughly distributed. I only wish I’d cut the bread so it had more surface area for better oil saturation.

Things I would or did change: We only had half an eggplant, and I’m glad I didn’t use more. It would have been overwhelming. I also added the parmesan in the recipe to the whole pasta bowl when I mixed in the mint and then offered more parmesan for garnish, which helped the flavor/texture. The texture would have been even better had I peeled the eggplant. I also would have used fresh basil instead of fresh mint. Yes, they’re very different flavors, but I think that the basil would have complemented the vegetables better. And, finally, it might have benefited from either some tomato paste or canned crushed tomatoes to make the sauce just a little bit more saucy.

Review: Eh. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t overwhelmingly delicious. (Except A’s Caesar. He makes a mean Caesar. Some time I’ll put the recipe up here.) It was an easy way to use up the rest of the eggplant and have leftovers.

Would I make it again? If I had some ingredients lying around and was feeling lazy, probably. Wouldn’t go out of my way for it though.