Pasta Carbonara

This past Sunday, I had a couple friends over to watch football. I wanted to make a dinner that didn't take much effort on my part, but would deliver an insane amount of flavor. My friend Sean is a huge bacon and onion fan and I had a ton of both from a recent Sam's Club excursion. So I decided on a pasta, but not just any pasta. The king of pastas, Pasta Carbonara.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 lb of bacon
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 medium red onion
• 4 large eggs
• 3/4 lb of Parmigiano Reggiano
• 2 Tablespoons of butter
• 1 cup of white wine
• 1 cup of beef stock
• 1 pound of fresh linguini
• large handful of fresh parsley
• Crushed Red Pepper
• Kosher Salt
• Fresh Ground Pepper
  

First up, take your bacon and chop it up. If you throw a couple extra slices in here, it won't hurt the dish at all.

Throw it in a pan with a little pepper. Cook the bacon until it's barely crispy. We still want it a little chewy.

In the meantime, dice up your red onion.

And dice up your garlic.

Remove your cooked bacon from the pan and set aside on a plate. DO NOT throw out the bacon grease, that would be a terrible tragedy. You can remove some of the renderings, but save at LEAST two to three tablespoons to cook the onion and garlic.

Throw your onions in the pan with the bacon grease along with salt and pepper. About this point you should be getting a pan ready with water to cook your pasta.

When the onions are soft, add the garlic.

Cook for a few minutes until the garlic softens and smells wonderful, then remove. Do NOT take this pan to the sink though (or even remove it from the heat). Do you see all that brown stuff on the bottom of the pan? We are going to turn that into deliciousness.

Start by hitting your hot pan with the cup of white wine. Get a wooden spoon or some sort of spatula to get those brown bits off the pan. Did you drop your pasta yet? My water is boiling and the pasta is down.

Then follow it with the cup of beef stock and the two tablespoons of butter and let it cook down. We will reduce this mixture by about half.

While your sauce is reducing, grate your wedge of parmigiano reggiano into a large bowl. The bowl must be large enough to hold all of your ingredients including the pasta.

To the cheese, add 4 eggs and about a 1/2 of a teaspoon of crushed red pepper. You can add more if you like it spicier.

Now add your parsley, freshly chopped. Don't be shy here. It won't hurt.

Mix it all up with some.....fresh ground pepper. It just goes so well with this entire dish.

This is what your delicious mixture should look like now.

Drain your pasta. I have linguini here, but you can use any type you want. I prefer the wider noodles for a royal dish such as this.

Drop the pasta in to your mixture while it's still hot. This is of the utmost importance. The heat will melt the cheese and cook the eggs. Add you're 3/4 cup of reduce mixture at this point now too. Just pour it onto the pasta. Mix this up really well.

Serve with bread and a nice glass of wine. Just writing this recipe makes me hungry again. This is a dish I will definitely revisit very soon.

BBQ Chicken Pizza

So, I just got back from a weekend getaway in North Carolina. While I was down there, I had some excellent food, however I did not have any Carolina style BBQ. The vinegar-style sauce on this pizza met my cravings for Carolina style 'Q and then some. The best thing is, I get to eat this again tomorrow. I made an extra pizza for my family so maybe this time they won't heckle me about not eating my blog's food! By the way, I kind of messed up this post a little. My camera's battery was dying during the process and while I thought I got pictures of me cooking the chicken and the bacon, apparently I had failed to do so. But I can assume that you guys know what chicken and bacon look like when the cook.

Ingredients (makes 2 pizzas):

• 8 strips of bacon
• 2 chicken breasts
• 2 pizza crusts
• 1 bottle (18oz) bbq sauce
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 of a pound of Smoked Gouda Cheese
  
• 1/3 of a red onion
• 1 jalapeno
• Crushed black pepper
  

Dice up your bacon and throw into a pan over medium heat. Add a dash of salt and pepper if so inclined.

When done cooking, take the bacon off the stove and drain on a paper towel.

Sprinkle BBQ seasoning on your chicken breasts. I used home made, but store bought is OK as well. Mine is a mix of smoked paprika, chili powder, salt, brown sugar, crushed pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper and a teeny tiny bit of oregano.

Place a little oil (or that leftover bacon fat if you are as awesome as me) on a pan on medium-high and toss in the chicken breasts. Cook completely. Slice the chicken up into bite size pieces. It's OK if you eat a couple, I know I did.

Slice up the red onion.

Slice up a Jalapeno. This step is optional, but highly recommended. I love the heat. Alternatively, you can use a green/red/yellow pepper (or nothing at all if you hate peppers). I am omitting this from my family's pizza, which is why their is only one in this recipe.

Take your smoked gouda cheese and shred it.

Now for the barbecue sauce. I am using Sweet Baby Ray's, which is a thick and dark Kansas City style sauce.

For this dish, I need something a little thinner and tangy-er, so I will cut it with the apple cider vinegar.

Then I am adding a little freshly crushed black pepper for a little bite.

I bought a store-made pizza crust. I know some people will think that is cheating and I should have made my own dough, but I just got back from North Carolina today and didn't have the time. Anyways, once you are done judging me, add the BBQ sauce.

Follow with your freshly shredded gouda.

And then the chicken.

And the bacon.

And then the onions. This is really starting to look good now.

Finish with the jalapenos and take a minute to admire your work.

You did preheat your oven to 425, right? If so, go ahead and throw the pizza in and find something to do for the next 12-14 minutes while this cooks. Cooking time may vary according to your pizza crust, but when it is just about turning golden brown and the cheese has melted, it's time. It might come out looking something like this: