Spring Vegetable Carbonara

Carbonara is such a dirty word.  Not only is it a sauce made from bacon, eggs, and cheese, but the eggs are only partially cooked.  This dish is just asking to condemned, and condemned it is.  I have a hard time being mean to carbonara, however, largely due to the fact that it's just so damn delicious.  Similar to the reaction I had when I found the risotto recipe, I knew that I had to try this slightly healthier version of carbonara.

Due to a clerical error on my part, I ended up buying green beans instead of asparagus.  I don't think that this changed the dish much, but I would have preferred to make the recipe as written.  I also used low-sodium bacon.  I don't see any harm in this, but I would not recommend using turkey bacon.  Turkey bacon doesn't render out enough fat to cook the pepper in.  It also lacks that decadent taste that is instantly recognizable as real bacon.

It's been well documented on this blog that I am very particular about the thickness of soups and sauces.  I was a little worried that my sauce would be too thick.  I definitely added some of the cooking water to my sauce, as the recipe suggests.  Unfortunately, I added to much and it was a little thin for my liking.  Also, the recipe claims that the sauce will thicken as you stir, but it's not nearly as much as you would think.  Be stingy if you add some of the cooking water back in.

So by now you probably want to know how it tastes.  I think it's a good attempt.  It definitely had a silky texture for the sauce.  There was the bacon and cheese.  The vegetables were a really nice addition instead of having only peas rolling around in cholesterol.  I would have no problem eating this dish many more times if it saves hundreds of calories over the traditional version.  Aside from the egg part, it looks like carbonara doesn't have to be such a dirty word after all.

Almost Meatless Sloppy Joes

My mom is an amazing woman.  She raised three children, had a full-time job, worked a part-time job, and went back to get her degree in Education - all at the same time.  I have nothing but respect for what my mom has achieved, but this is not to say that we didn't have to make some sacrifices.
Unfortunately, one of the sacrifices was a home-cooked meal that didn't come out out of a bag, jar, or box.  We often had Shake & Bake or Manwiches, until I was trusted to make dinner without burning down the house.  I think that a lot of these meals really shaped my tastes in food, and I can certainly say that these meals are one of the main reasons I almost passed entirely on making this sloppy joe recipe.
To me, Sloppy Joes are just ground meat mixed with sauce from a jar.  For the record, we never had a creepy lunch lady like Adam Sandler portrayed.  Sloppy Joes were a quick meal that required little attention.  This was not the star meal of the week, in fact it was usually forgotten before the dishwasher finished its cycle.
In an effort to expand my tastes and give every recipe its fair shake, I buckled down and tried Almost Meatless Sloppy Joes.  The prep was quick, the dish required the same minimal attention, and i would guess that an hour elapsed from the time I started chopping the onion until the time I was literally licking my plate clean.
There, I said it.  These Sloppy Joes are delicious.  If you don't look at them too closely you would not even know that there were beans and carrots in there.  Those carrots, along with some brown sugar, add a touch of sweetness that is reminiscent of the jar stuff.  The seasoning gives it just a little bit of a kick, but not enough that picky children would be turned off from these.  The only thing I would add to the recipe is to use a little more salt and pepper than it calls for - it could just use a little bit more.  Also, I used lean chuck instead of sirloin.  I got 85/15, skimmed a tablespoon of fat out of the pan before adding the carrots, and saved a few bucks over the sirloin.
One final note about these fantastic sandwiches.  The recipe says to use 1 cup of meat mixture for one roll. As you can see in the picture, I had two sandwiches.  Each of those has 1/2 cup of meat mixture and they are still overflowing.  Unless you have giant kaiser rolls, you can definitely spread this recipe into 6-8 sandwiches.