Carbonara or Cardiovascular Disease in a Bowl

This was one of those magical meals that happens only when you THINK that you have nothing left in your house to eat.  But oh contrare m'friend!  You probably have all these ingredients in your house at this very moment!  It's so tasty and perfect for throwing in whatever else you have hanging around (tomatoes, artichokes, broccoli) but for all that it IS it's certainly NOT light.  But who cares about that anyway?

Start by chopping up about 1/2lb of bacon, yes bacon, into small chunks and fry them up.  This works best in a stainless steel pan (which I happen to own!) but it would work fine in a non-stick pan.

While this is cooking have your husband chop up half an onion and two cloves of garlic.  Then console him after a piece of onion flies RIGHT in his eye, and let him work it out by killing zombies on his computer.

Once the bacon's just barely done, we're not going for too crispy here, scoop it out with a slotted spoon and KEEP THE BACON GREASE hot in the pan.  Remember what I said about not light?

Dump the onions in the bacon grease and let them cook for 2-3 minutes, then add in the garlic.  You want to avoid adding the garlic at the beginning because otherwise it will burn and turn into nasty little pieces of black coal.  And nobody wants that.

Oh yeah.  You should be cooking some spaghetti while you're doing all this too.  Enough for two people.  However much that might be in your case.

And another thing?  In a big bowl (big enough to hold all the pasta when cooked) add two eggs,  3/4c Parmesan (or shaky cheese as it is sometimes known), and 1/2 a bunch of chopped parsley (I used a couple spoonfuls of dried).  Mix this together and set it aside.  I said don't touch it!  Don't think I'm not watching you.

After the onions and garlic have cooked through a bit spoon them out of the bacon grease and, finally, say sayonara to the rest of the grease.  Here's the exciting part!  We get to deglaze the pan!  Now you see why a stainless steel pan is so great!  I wasn't particularly interested in using the wine that's normally suggested so I used about 1/2 C of chicken stock.  Here's what you do.

Set the empty pan on a burner on high.  You want all the black crumbly bits at the bottom to heat up, just until the pan starts smoking.  Then in a flourish dump in the stock and pull your face away from the funnel of steam that issues forth.  Use a whisk or spoon to scrape off all those black crumbly bits from the bottom of the pan and TA DAAA. Consider yourself deglazed.

 Then you can add another 1/2C of chicken stock and be saddened that no column of steam accompanies it, then add back in the bacon, onion and garlic and let it simmer over medium heat.

Now we're almost done, I promise.  When your pasta is done drain it, then quickly add it to the bowl of eggs and such that you set aside earlier, and pour the onion/bacon mixture over top.  Make sure the pasta is HOT when you add it because that heat is going to cook the eggs and prevent unwanted things like salmonella and gross tasting carbonara.  (the two go hand in hand)  Finally, throw 2TB of butter in there (I know, I'm sorry) and some black pepper, and toss it all together.  If you're like me this means slopping half the pasta over the sides and getting lots of onions stuck in the recesses of your kitchen tongs. 


After the mess you can dish it right up and add some more Parmesan if you don't think there's enough to give you a heart attack.

I kind of wish I had had fresh parsley and some decent Parmesan, but whatever.  This was REALLY good and it heats up quite nicely for leftovers the next day.  Please to enjoy!