Spaghetti Carbonara

Before Spring Break I had the opportunity to invade a friend's kitchen. It's not very often that I get to use a kitchen while I'm at school, since my house only has a microwave and refrigerator, so I took full advantage of the situation.

I may have gotten slightly carried away while I was at the store shopping for ingredients (listen to that rule about not shopping while you're hungry). I think I got enough food to feed 25 people, while I was actually feeding 6 people.

For an easy appetizer, so everyone could munch while I finished cooking, I made a caprese salad. It's probably one of the easiest salads to make, and yet it seems so much more elegant and tasteful than a regular garden salad. A caprese salad simply calls for: sliced fresh tomato, sliced fresh mozzarella, fresh basil leaves, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. All I had to was pile the ingredients on top of each other and then drizzle the oil and vinegar over it all. Impress your guests sometime and make this salad...just don't let them know it only took you 5 minutes to make.

I also made some garlic bread to accompany the spaghetti. Garlic bread is fairly simple as we all know. Just butter and garlic salt, then stick it in the oven and you've got toast that is bursting with flavor.

The spaghetti carbonara can be made several ways. Everyone seems to have a different recipe for this classic dish. In mine, for the sauce I just use eggs, cheese, and crushed garlic. Then when I am adding the sauce to the noodles I pour over the pasta bacon that I have had cooking in a dry white wine, that still has plenty of drippings. The key is to make sure your spaghetti carbonara doesn't get lumpy, so make sure you have enough liquid, and serve the whole thing in a heated serving bowl. It's such an easy meal, but it's so good and everyone loves it. I had two marriage proposals from male friends of mine that night, that's how much this easy dish impresses and satisfies everyone!



Of course to top off the whole thing I had dessert, but I didn't make it. I bought a raspberry white chocolate cheesecake from Stop and Shop that was shockingly good. I would recommend it to anyone.

Overall the night was a success, and I ate enough to fill up three grown men, which in Amy language means I went home happy!