Pasta Carbonara

My friend Marie asked me to make this recipe for the blog since she saw pics of it on instagram. Honestly, pasta carbonara is super easy to make, and tastes delicious. This is a dish however that doesn't reheat terribly well. It's kind of like mac and cheese for adults, super charged with bacon.

So here goes. This is what you need:

I was making a big recipe because we had 5 people eating it for dinner yesterday. You can absolutely reduce the amount!

Pasta (Any kind will work. I've made it with fettuccine, farfalle, macaroni, and in this case rotini) Bacon (I prefer the thick cut kind, I'd use about a regular sized packet)
Heavy whipping cream (In this case I used just over a pint)
Parmesan (I used 2.5 bags, each bag was about 1.5 cups)

Cut your bacon into smallish pieces:

Toss those in your preheated pot. I use a dutch oven, but you could also use a sauce pan or whatever works for you.

Render your bacon, the bacon grease will be the base of your sauce.

Now add a bunch of cream. In this case I used somewhat over a pint of cream. You can kind of figure this out by what the desired proportions are.

Now add about 2.5 bags of parmesan.

Make sure you blend the cream and cheese well. If your sauce seems too runny, add cheese. If your sauce seems too thick, add cream. Also add a lot of black pepper. Carbonara comes from the Italian word for coal. The pasta is named carbonara because of all the pepper looking like coal pieces.

Cook your pasta following directions, and then add the pasta to the sauce. You could serve the sauce on the side, but in my experience it's easier to just mix it all together and then serve.

Boom! You now have pasta carbonara. See how easy this is? If you want a vegetarian version of it you can use butter in place of the bacon and bacon grease.
As I mentioned earlier, this pasta doesn't reheat very well in the microwave. The fat separates and it becomes really greasy/oily. To counteract this you can add a bit of extra whipping cream to the pasta before microwaving it. Then stir it up really well. That should help, but it is still a dish better eaten fresh.


Quickie Summary:

Ingredients:
Bacon (1 pack)
1+ pint heavy whipping cream
2-3 bags parmesan
Pasta

Preparation:
Cut up bacon
Render bacon
Add cream
Add parmesan
Mix thoroughly
Ensure all cheese has been melted
Add cooked pasta to the sauce
Serve

Bacon-Chicken-Corn-Chowder

This is one of my absolute favorite dishes. My mom made it for me twice and I've just adapted it somewhat. It is also my boss's favorite dish that I make. It's great to make for larger gatherings because you can make it in large quantities. You may have noticed, that I only cook for armies. It might actually be more necessary to adapt it for smaller quantities. It is also easy to freeze.

Anyway, time to get started. These are the ingredients you'll need.

2 cartons of chicken broth (I used two 1-Liter tetra packs, I prefer this brand as it's local and organic)
Heavy whipping cream (I used about a pint and a half)
1 bag frozen corn (I use the slightly larger mediumish sized one)
1 bag frozen hash browns cubed (not seasoned - they are just so much easier and taste just as good)
1 2 lbs bag of fresh carrots
1 bag celery (it's like a head of celery)
Chicken (my amount was just under 3 lbs. I used skinless boneless chicken thighs. Chicken breasts work fine and I used them for this recipe regularly, but the chicken thighs have a bit more flavor.)
Bacon
Salt
Pepper
Italian seasoning
Chicken or vegetable broth cubes (I used two this time)
Soy sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Maggi seasoning if you have it

And there's one more optional ingredient:

White wine to deglaze your pot and add concentrated flavor.

So there are different ways you can do this.
I tend to peel my carrots, but it's not necessary if you scrub them very well. Most of the vitamins are right under the skin, I just don't like the texture that much.

Now chop them up into pieces. At the bottom half where they are skinnier I just cut them into coin pieces. The top half that is thicker I tend to split down the center and then cut them into half moon pieces

Now toss them in a bowl and reserve.

Next up is the celery. Make sure you rinse it really well. At the base where they connect to the roots dirt will accumulate and be pretty resistant to cleaning off. So take the head apart and clean the stalks individually.

Cut off the bases and tips. You can include the greenery (I.a. the leaves, they taste good, but can get wilted really fast, so it's a matter of preferences yet again.) I cut them as they are for the most part they automatically make the half moon shapes, but at the base where they are thicker I sometimes cut a slice half way through like this, so it halves the size:

Now chop them up. For some reason chopping celery is immensely satisfying to me. Maybe it's the crunch and resistance, but not too much resistance. Regardless, I love it!

Put the chopped up celery with your carrots. (You don't really need a pic for this, but I just like the colors, so fresh and healthy looking, so you get one anyway.)

Now it's time to chop up your bacon. You could do this first, but I like having my veggies ready. If you're great at time management you can do these two steps reversed.

I just cut it into thin strips. You can also use the weedwacker bacon I wrote about in my recipe for Bacon Pinwheels.

Begin rendering the bacon in the pot you are planing to use for the soup. In the past I've used my various dutch oven pots, but my mom picked up this fabulous stock pot for us after our wedding. It's perfect for my chowder.

While the bacon is rendering, I cut up my chicken. You will notice that I am using dark chicken meat. I used skinless, boneless chicken thighs this time. You can absolutely use chicken breasts, which I do most of the time, but the chicken thighs are more flavorful, however also more fatty. So if you are on a diet stick with chicken breasts. Well, to be honest, diet food this soup is not, it has tons of heavy whipping cream in it. But great for a warm, cozy, fall night where you're living in chunky sweaters. You can work out in spring. ^^

The reason you're rendering the bacon is because this will be the base fat for everything in the soup. You could use olive oil or any other oil instead of the bacon and the bacon fat. I like the bacon fat because it adds a whole new level of flavor. Multidimensionality.
Once the bacon has been rendered you can add your carrots and celery.

Toss them so they are all coated in the grease and sautee them.

Now I'm adding the two bouillon cubes. I prefer Knorr. They're a great brand and always available at my local Winco. I used to use them when I lived in Germany too. If you have a Winco here's an insider tip. Check out the Hispanic foods section. They have the same chicken bouillon for a cheaper price and a larger quantity. It's worth a gander.

If you use them it goes quite a bit faster if you also break them up with your wooden stirring spoon.

Now I use a lot of white wine to deglaze my pot. If you are omitting the wine, you can use the broth to deglaze your pan.

I used about half a bottle.

Cook it down until almost all of the wine has evaporated. Then add your chicken and cook it up some.

Add a bunch of your Italian seasoning. (Sorry for the blurry pictures, the steam really interferes with my picture taking process!)

Add the broth to your pot.

Add your corn, potatoes, more Italian seasoning, pepper, and some salt. Now add liberal splashes of the worcestershire sauce, the soy sauce, and the Maggi.

Last but not least, add a bunch of cream, I added about a pint and a half of heavy whipping cream.

I usually let it simmer for a good long time to ensure everything is fully cooked, especially since I usually make it in advance of when I want to eat it.
Serve it on its own, or with this delicious No knead artisan style bread.

My husbands not a huge fan of broth and likes his soups really chunky, so that's usually how I make them.

I hope you enjoy the food. I'd love to get some feedback on what you like and what not. Please feel free to leave me a comment or shoot me an email. I'm interested in any kind of feedback, whether constructive criticism or praise which is always nice too. :)

Steak in a Mushroom Cream Sauce

This is one of Charlie's absolute favorite dishes. I learned this during a 3 day cooking class in Switzerland when I was a kid. So I figured I'd share this with all of you. Who knows, you might find this to be a new favorite of yours as well.

So, here's what you need:

Ingredients:
Steak this time we used chuck steak, but petite sirloins are great too. Honestly you can pretty much do this with any steak you feel like. We've also done it with steak strips, etc.
White Wine you can do it with red wine too if you want, but it'll discolor the sauce.
Whipping Cream
Mushrooms fresh or canned
Bouillon/Broth Cubes (i.e. concentrated broth flavoring)
Salt
Pepper
Cayenne
Paprika
Butter or Olive Oil

Preparation:
Season the steak with the pepper, cayenne, salt, and paprika.

Start a sauce pan or dutch oven like I did with some butter, preheat it.

Now toss in the steak, seasoned side down and season the other side.

Sear the steak on both sides.

Once both sides have been seared, remove the steak and reserve on the side.

See the brown bits in the pan? Those are the great flavored bits too. Now you want to deglaze the pan with white wine.

Add a couple of bullion cubes to the mix and reduce.

Once the mixture has reduced and most of the alcohol has cooked off, you add a very generous amount of cream.

Then you add the mushrooms to the mixture.

Let it all boil down for a while to thicken. Then you can add the steaks back in and cook them in the sauce to your desired doneness.

We usually serve it with egg noodles, but you can serve this with any choice of noodles. We usually mix the noodles into the sauce, but you can also serve the sauce over the noodles, or on the side.
This is one of the easiest recipes to make, but has a big bang for your buck.
I hope you enjoy!


Here is the condensed recipe:




Ingredients:
Steak
White Wine
Whipping Cream
Mushrooms fresh or canned
Bouillon/Broth Cubes (i.e. concentrated broth flavoring)
Salt
Pepper
Cayenne
Paprika
Butter or Olive Oil
Pasta

Preparation:
Season the steak with the pepper, cayenne, salt, and paprika.
Preheat sauce pan or dutch oven with some butter or olive oil.
Sear the steak on both sides.
Reserve steak.
Deglaze pan with white wine.
Add bullion/broth cubes to the wine.
Reduce the wine.
Add lots of cream.
Add mushroom.
Cook down until the sauce thickens,
Add the steak back in and cook to preferred doneness.

Serve with pasta, either premix with sauce, or serve on the side.