Pasta Carbonara

This recipe is great if you want something really delicious in a short period of time, well… Shorter than most of my recipes, haha. My friends once again, say they will never let me leave because they demand I cook for them every evening.

Ingredients:

• 1 box of bowtie pasta
• 2 cups of thawed frozen peas
• .5 a package of bacon, or one of the mini packages
• .5 of a yellow onion
• 4 cups of heavy crème
• 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cleaned and cut into cubes
• .5 stick of butter
• a few cloves of garlic
• dash of salt
• dash of pepper
• dash of oregano
• squeeze of lemon

Start off boiling the pasta, cause that always seems to take forever. Look right at the directions on the back of the box, they’re always right. So just set a timer and there you have it. Always make sure to rinse with cold water; otherwise the pasta will continue to cook even if it’s not in the boiling water anymore! Duh, and throw a tablespoon of olive oil on them and swish them around so they don’t stick together.

Cook your bacon how you normally would, let it dry and cool on a paper towel to remove the access oil. Once it’s cool enough to touch, chop your bacon into bacon bits! NO, you may not substitute bacon with bacon bits. We do not live in a double wide… Well, you might. In which case I empathize. My mom downgraded once I left for college, not a pretty site.

Next you’re going to take your onion and garlic and caramelize them in the butter. Your chicken should already be cleaned, tenderized, and cut by now. So you’ll throw all of that into the pot with the onions and garlic and simmer, stirring occasionally. Once you see that all the juices have really left the chicken, [I always just scoop out an extra piece to be sure it’s not pink in the middle] you can add the crème , peas, and crispy bacon to your chicken.

Add the spices slowly but surely, tasting occasionally to see if it needs more of one thing over another. You shouldn’t need too much salt because the bacon is really salty already.

The thing that’s great about heavy crème is that it doesn’t curdle when it touches heat, and it’s way easier than making a béchamel sauce from scratch. I’ve made quite a few mistakes where I thought just throwing in flour and milk would make this beautiful fancy white sauce, WRONG. It curdles and ruins everything, it’s very frustrating and takes a lot more consideration. So just stick to the heavy crème okay simpletons? Hahaha ;}

I had one too many glasses of champagne last night… Ugh. How is everyone elses day going? Anyone want to ask me to make something specific? I’d love a challenge tonight!

Yours forever Food Lovers,
Justin Francis Kane
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