Quick and dirty carbonara.

Pasta carbonara is such an easy pasta it sometimes makes me cry when I think that I used to buy the Lipton sidekicks version of it.  I never really enjoyed it, but I thought it would be easier.  Fortunately, I grew wise to the carbonara's tricks.  The part about it that takes the longest is letting the noodles cook.  Everything else is easy like cake.

First, get a pot of salted water on the stove, and while you're waiting for it to come to a boil, fry up a few slices of bacon, cut into small pieces.

Don't get distracted by your toddler and burn the whole panful.  Not like I know from experience or anything.

Who put that picture up there?

Once the water is boiling, drop in a small handful of pasta (I use spagetti or spaghettini usually), about the diameter of a quarter. 

Take 3 egg yolks and 1/2 cup cream and whisk them together in a bowl.  Add a good shake of salt, pepper and I like a bit of garlic powder in there too.  If you want a lighter version, you can use almost any percentage...  even a whole milk would work.  (You could also use fried ham instead of bacon, but hey, you only live once right?)  I had whipping cream in the fridge, so that's what I used.  Sweet creamy cream.

Drain your bacon.  Just get most of the fat out of the pan, and leave the bacon in it.

Once the pasta is 95% done, I throw a good cup of frozen peas into the water...  kills two birds with one stone. 

Before you drain, always make sure to scoop out a bit of the pasta water.  It comes in handy if you need to stretch your sauce a bit, or just loosen it all up. 

Drain the pasta and plop it into the bacon pan.  (At this point the heat should be off and the heat of the noodles will cook the eggs in the sauce.  If you leave the heat on, you run the risk of making a really gross fritatta).  Pour the egg/cream mixture over and toss with tongs.

For more indulgence...  parmesan cheese is a wonderful addition.

It's a hundred times better than anything out of an envelope and it didn't take much longer.  You will need to wash one extra pan, but that's something I can live with for a plate of food that looks like that.