Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Sunday was a phenomenally beautiful in the Pacific Northwest. What we skiers would call a blue bird kind of day. It was unseasonably warm and ended with a breathtaking sunset. While cooking dinner I had to run out and capture it quickly.

G spent the day on the mountain which meant I had the day to myself which was kind of nice, shhh don't tell him that. I made sure not to clutter my "me" time with errands and duties which I usually do when I have a day to myself but rather to just flow with the day and do as I choose hour by hour. Which didn't include much more than just puttsing around the house most of the day.

G's Spaghetti all Carbonara @ Barola

Somewhere later in the day I decided I'd make a dish we'd recently had at a Seattle restaurant that I'd never made at home but had always wanted to, Spaghetti alla Carbonara. G had ordered it for lunch during our recent day spent in Seattle and it reminded me how much I've always liked the dish. I walked up to Metropolitan Market to get the few things I needed to make the dish.

I found a recipe on Epicurious to follow and learned that the creaminess of the carbonara in an authentic dish doesn't come from cream but rather from whipped eggs that you add with cheese at the very end.

For the most part it's an incredibly simple dish.I started with the bacon.

I've had the dish with both peas and mushrooms although the recipe didn't call for them I added them.

Since I knew G would be starving when he came home I picked one of his favorite treats; these wonderfully delicate bread sticks for him to snack on until dinner was ready to be served.

The spaghetti, well actually I used bucatini ( a thicker pasta with a hole in down the middle) because I love it, turned out great. Because it was bucatini I cooked it just a little too al dente for my tastes but the flavor and texture of the dish was great.

We served the dish with  Walla Walla's  Waterbrook 2008 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, which was AWESOME! (Will need to do an "All About Wine on Wednesday" post on this one.)

My only thought for the next time I make this dish is to use the suggestion of thinning the sauce with a little bit of the pasta water at the end. I think that would of loosened it up just a bit making it a bit creamier. But this is definitely a comfort dish that provided some great Sunday night comfort.

Epicurious Recipe: Link