I’m a big fan of meals that use lots of bits and pieces from
the fridge or freezer. I feel that they
require more creativity than a meal that requires a trip to the store and there
is just something cathartic about creating
more empty space in your fridge.
Last week’s adventure began with me thinking that breakfast for dinner
sounded like a good idea, we had a lot of eggs and a partial package of bacon
begging to be used. It kept gnawing at
me though that there was a half can of pureed pumpkin and some already washed
baby spinach. So I remixed breakfast
ingredients and here is what developed:
Pumpkin Carbonara
1 lb
spaghetti
½ lb thick
sliced bacon
2 large
cloves garlic (3 if they’re small), chopped fine
1 ½ cups
fresh spinach
1 tablespoon
fresh thyme, chopped fine
3 eggs
¾ cup pureed
pumpkin (or whatever is less when you have used 1 cup for one of the many
recipes that calls for only 1 cup of pumpkin)
1 cup hard
Italian cheese, shredded (I used grana padano and pecorino romano)
¼ teaspoon
ground nutmeg
Salt and
pepper to taste
Bring a
large pot of water to boil for the pasta and heat a medium sized skillet of
your choice. Chop the bacon crosswise
into ½ inch strips and cook on medium until crispy. Remove the bacon from pan with a spatula and
place on paper towels to drain grease.
Drain the bacon grease except for 1 tablespoon into a container for
later use (I’ll put up my Individual Yorkshire Puddings recipe at some point,
this uses the leftover). You could
probably use turkey bacon or another less fatty bacon for this recipe, you
would just have to add a little oil to the pan.
Add the
garlic to the pan and let cook on low to golden brown, add the spinach and cook
for 2 minutes and then add thyme.
Hopefully by now the water is boiling and you can cook your pasta as
directed, it is important for this recipe that the pasta is hot when the
ingredients are mixed. While the pasta
and spinach cook, beat the eggs with the pumpkin. If it looks too thick, you may want to add a
splash of milk, use your judgment. Blend
the cheese and nutmeg with the egg mixture.
Drain the
pasta, turn off the heat and return the pasta to pot. Put bacon back in skillet and blend with the
spinach. Add the spinach/bacon mixture
to the pasta and stir together (tongs worked really well for doing this). Then add the egg/cheese/ pumpkin mixture,
stirring constantly until the sauce thickens as the eggs cook.
Garnish with
sprigs of thyme, extra cheese, and/or extra bacon.
Wookiee
loved it, the pumpkin taste was really subtle and it had a great fall flavor,
perfect comfort food! We ate while watching
the latest Iron Chef America (really low scoring battle) and I managed to pull
a dessert out of the situation also. In
the spirit of the evening, my secret ingredient was PUMPKIN! I re-heated some leftover pumpkin waffles I
had made earlier in the week (a total of 1 and a half waffles) and served with
hot maple syrup, whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon. It was also great
because I had been originally planning on using them for the breakfast dinner
anyways!
In the words
of the great Alton Brown: I bid you good eating.
