Monday, December 19, 2011

Tasty Tuesday



I made this the other day and it was cremey baconey goodness. I used bacon instead of the traditional panchetta and it turned out great. I have never had this dish before so I don't have any reference point but I likey. I think you may likey too.


Pasta Carbanara

For this recipe, we’ll need:



* 1lb linguine pasta

* 4 eggs

* 1 pound bacon or pancetta

* 1 1/2 cups Parmesan cheese

* 8-12 cloves of garlic

* 1 large onion

* 1 cup chicken stock

* 1 cup white wine (or substitute another cup of stock)

* 1/2 stick of butter

* 1 handful of parsley

* 1-2 tablespoons black pepper


Preparation Instructions


First, slice up 1 pound of bacon into pieces about one inch wide. Once they’re sliced, just toss your bacon pieces into a stainless steel pan. Cook until browned and crisp.

While the bacon’s cooking, set a pot of salted water (I use about 2 tablespoon of salt for a gallon of water) on the stove for our pasta. When it comes to a boil add your linguine and cook until al dente, tender-firm.

Next, chop your onion. When the bacon is cooked, scoop it out with a slotted spoon and set it onto a plate. Reserve the bacon grease! We still need that stuff.

Throw the diced onions into the bacon grease. Give the onions a quick stir and let them cook down over a medium-high heat for a couple of minutes.

In the meantime, thinly slice the garlic. After the onions have cooked for a couple of minutes, throw in the garlic. Adding it after the onions have cooked a little will prevent the garlic from burning. After the onion and garlic have cooked for another couple of minutes, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon. Discard the grease.

Place the pan back on high heat until it starts to smoke a little. As soon as the pan begins to smoke, pour in the white wine (or chicken stock). Whisk until pan is thoroughly deglazed and all of the brown bits have come off of the bottom of the pan. Add 1 cup of chicken stock. Return bacon, onion and garlic back to the pan. Let simmer over medium heat.

Crack four eggs into a large bowl. Add most of the Parmesan cheese, and rough chop the parsley, adding it into the eggs as well. Leave a little Parmesan and parsley out for a garnish. Mix well with a fork.

Drain the water from your pasta. Be sure the pasta is very hot. Add the pasta to the egg mixture and then add the bacon/onion mixture. Finally throw a ½ stick (1/4 cup) of butter in there. Mix it all together well. Pepper to taste. Garnish with Parmesan and parsley. And you’re done! Enjoy!


Receipe taken from http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/


It's frosty in here.


I am taking advantage of this time off I have been given. I must say that I have loved everyday so far. There are so many projects around the house that I wasn't able to get to when I was working that I have been knocking off my list. This is one of those projects. We have this TV cabinet that has these glass inset doors. I like the doors but I don't like seeing all the DVDs and Cd's in the cabinet. I found a great way to handle that problem. I used a stencil template that I found online and a used a can of this Rustoleum Frosted Glass  to hide all the stuff without getting rid of the glass.


I had a bit of trouble getting the hang of making sure the stencil was placed correctly. The first time I tried was an epic fail so I had the great pleasure of scraping off all the frost.




 (FYI: if something like this happens to you; save yourself some heartache and soak the glass in rubbing alcohol and the frost peels off. So much faster and easier.)


I really like the way it came out. Next time I spend more time prepping the piece before I spray. 


If you look closely you can see that I got some of the spray paint on the wood. That's nothing that a little alcohol can't fix.