Pasta Carbonara Florentine

My husband said it best: "How can you go wrong when you combine pasta, eggs and bacon in one dish?"

Truer* words have never been spoken.

*Is "truer" a word?! I thought it was but it doesn't look right!


This recipe hails from one of my fave recipe sources, Cooking Light. I love the fact that it's a lightened-up version of what could be a very decadent dish AND it adds in some healthy greens with the spinach.

But don't let the "light" part fool you, it still tastes perfectly decadent with the salty bacon and parmesan and the creamy sauce. Let's just say I had to physically restrain myself from going and getting seconds so that I could still have enough leftover* for lunch tomorrow.

*You better believe I called dibs on these leftovers! My husband is a leftovers hog but he will NOT be feasting on carbonara tomorrow.**

**Can you tell yet that I'm loving this asterisk footnote thing tonight?? I know, I'm weird.


Pasta Carbonara Florentine
Source: Cooking Light

Yield: 4 servings; Serving size: 1 cup

Ingredients

• Cooking spray
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1 (6-ounce) package bagged prewashed baby spinach
• 6 slices center-cut bacon, chopped
• 1 cup finely chopped onion
• 2 tablespoons dry white wine
• 8 ounces uncooked spaghetti
• 1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg white
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (omitted)

Preparation

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt and spinach; cook 1 minute or until spinach wilts, stirring constantly. Remove spinach from pan; place in a bowl.

Add bacon to pan; cook 3 minutes or until crisp, stirring frequently. Remove bacon from pan, reserving 2 teaspoons drippings in pan; set bacon aside. Add onion to drippings in pan; cook 2 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently. Add wine; cook 1 minute or until liquid is reduced by half. Remove from heat; keep warm.

Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain well, reserving 1 tablespoon cooking liquid. Immediately add pasta and the reserved cooking liquid to onion mixture in skillet. Add spinach and bacon; stir well to combine. Place skillet over low heat.

Combine remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, cheese, pepper, egg, and egg white, stirring with a whisk. Add to pasta mixture, tossing well to coat. Cook 1 minute. Remove from heat. Sprinkle with parsley. Serve immediately.

No Chance in Hell

Did anyone else have a manic Monday like me? Gahhhhh. It was even harder than usual to get back in the swing of things at work this week, I think because last week I was out of the office in a training class most of the time. Playing catchup stresses me outtttttt. I don't like being overwhelmed. Humph!

I came home feeling pretty wiped but forced myself to do 30 Day Shred level 2...Gotta burn off all those calories I drank and ate this weekend!

There wasn't a chance in hell I was going to cook dinner tonight, so luckily we had planned a meal that is super easy and Alex was completely willing to put it together. Sometimes things just work out the way they should in life. :)


That would be one of very favorite easy and healthy{ish} meals:

-Whole Wheat Spaghetti with jarred sauce
-Grilled Hot Italian Turkey Sausage links
-Steamed-in-a-Bag Broccoli

Seriously one of our favorite meals and it is so easy. Gotta love that!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now switch gears with me and rewind to last night because I still need to fill you in on what we ate for dinner! The in-laws were still in town last night so my father-in-law cooked! YES! House guests who cook me dinner on occasion are MORE than welcome in my house! :)

He made an amazing deeeeeeelicious seafood dish with a tomato sauce called Cioppino, which he saw featured on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives earlier in the day. I forgot to take a picture {bad blogger!} but here's a link to the recipe that he took inspiration from. It was sooooo good! Ours had crab legs, mussels, clams, shrimp and fish. He served the tomatoey seafood with fresh bread for lots of dipping.

Alex and I loved it so much that we plan on making it again sometime soon so hopefully I will get a picture of it then for blogging's sake. :)

Obvious and Unoriginal Chicken

Sunday was a day of laundry and a little shopping {Old Navy}. I was in a bit of a funk all day and I'm still not sure why. I just felt super exhausted, despite the fact that I'd had an adequate amount of sleep and I wasn't in a particularly good mood {poor husband}. I tried to lay down to "take a nap" at about 5pm because I felt so exhausted but then I couldn't fall asleep. Instead of sleeping I got sucked into the book I was reading and before I knew it it was 7pm!

We had chicken thawed for dinner but no idea what to make with it. I took a gander at the fridge and saw that we had some on-the-edge-of-going-bad broccoli and cherry tomatoes.

I wasn't feeling up to doing much actual "cooking" so I just tossed the chicken breasts, tomatoes and broccoli in a glass baking dish, drizzled some olive oil on top of it all, sprinkled generously with salt & pepper, and baked in a 425 degree oven for about 40-45 minutes or until the chicken reached an internal temp of 185 degrees. {I ended up having to cover the baking dish with foil about halfway through so that the broccoli didn't brown too much}


To spruce it up just a bit more I topped the chicken with some crumbled goat cheese and buffalo hot sauce after it came out of the oven. We also served the meal with whole wheat buttered toast on the side. It wasn't the most exciting meal in the world but the chicken was tender and the veggies were flavorful {because they cooked in yummy chicken juice}.

I've decided this is a great go-to meal when I'm feeling super lazy because it literally requires NO prep {other than maybe cutting up veggies} and you just toss it in the oven and forget about it for 45 minutes!

It could also be made with any vegetables you have on hand I have visions of making it with sweet potatoes, red potatoes, squash, red onion, etc. etc. etc. Super versatile and easy! I think I shall dub this dish: Clean Out Yer Fridge Roasted Chicken and Veg

{Side note: I know this meal isn't earth shattering or new, but sometimes I find that I tend to forget about the simplest things and try to complicate everything we cook too much. If you're like me, maybe you could use a reminder that something so simple can be so good. If you're not like me, then just disregard this post because you're probably rolling your eyes at the fact that I would dare make an entire blog post dedicated to something so obvious and unoriginal!}

After dinner we watched True Blood, which OMG I'm obsessed with! I watched the first 2 seasons on DVD but now that we have HBO I can watch them as they premiere the episodes. This is actually quite dificult for me though because they leave each episode with such a suspenseful ending that I literally scream "Noooooooooo!" when the credits roll because I'm so dying to find out what happens next. It's addicting!!

Do you have any obvious and unoriginal recipes to share with me? I'll appreciate them, I promise! ;-)