There are a couple of recipes that I am determined to cram into this week. That means some extra grocery budgeting, but since we're not traveling & since my main goal for this year (err... outside of French fluency) is to increase my cooking abilities.
Joe loves pasta. This is partially because he has a genuine affection for Italian food (namely pizza) & partially because we could afford it when we couldn't afford much else. I don't get very excited about pasta. I've recently discovered that this is because I like my pasta al dente... but I am not good at boiling things, so it's never done properly. (This is why Joe always makes our pasta & any dish involving rice.)
So, after seeing a grocery list on a friend's blog that include ingredients for pasta carbonara, I decided to try the recipe out. I love dairy, and Joe loves black pepper, so the cream-pepper-egg-cheese sauce seems like a good fit. Then after some recipe searching, I discovered that many "traditional" carbonara recipes opt for white wine instead of cream. We decided to try that–an excuse to try more wine, eat less cream & taste a whole different style of pasta.
Here is the carbonara recipe that I settled on. But more important than finding the right recipe for me this time was finding the right set of tips. I wanted this pasta to be perfectly al dente, & I wanted to make traditional Italian food in the traditional Italian style–not just with Italian ingredients. I found two Italians that helped me get my things in order (one & two). Here are the main things to take away:
1. Do not rinse your pasta. Let the starches stay, & throw the noodles into the sauce. This helps the two bind together, & you don't get that pool of water on your plate (the other thing that made me dislike pasta). This means that the salt you add to the water really will make the pasta better, because it pulls out even more starchy goodness.
2. Unless otherwise noted, the cooking time on the box is for al dente pasta.
3. Don't throw the flavor out with the pasta water! Before draining the noodles, add a few tablespoons of the water into your sauce. Drain your pasta & throw it back into the pot it cooked in; pour the sauce over the pasta.
Success! The pasta ended up being a rapid-cooking pasta made mostly of quinoa (found in the fair trade section, so a bit unconventional). We also tried to cut down on the bacon & cheese weight by throwing in a LOT of steamed (ok, boiled lightly since we don't have a steamer) cauliflower. It went perfectly with the recipe & meant we needed a lot less pasta.
Next up: graduate school applications, but more importantly the classic pancake (filled with fruity bits & nuts, like I gorged myself on at Heartland Café in Chicago). I wish I could do fig galettes, since figs are everywhere here. I'm going to find a way to whine about not having an oven in every post.
Goal for tomorrow morning: start on the fitness track again. By Christmas, I want to be doing 100 push-ups & 200 sit-ups.
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