Family Chow Hall

Here it is, a different take on spaghetti — a great recipe for those picky kids you see eating dry, tasteless spaghetti because they don’t like red tomato sauce. (picture me rolling my eyes) Also a great dish for the accomplished spaghetti-eating adult who just wants something a bit different.

My basic two ways of preparing spaghetti are 1) chunky red sauce and 2) purchased Alfredo sauce. Spaghetti Carbonara is a lighter-tasting spaghetti containing bits of bacon but still retaining an Italian flavor. Mmm…. Mmmm… If my kids read this post, I can promise you I’ll be making this one soon.

I don’t know if the Olive Garden serves this dish, but I can just imagine it — it would fit in really well on their advertisements.

Spaghetti Carbonara
serves 6

1 lb. dry spaghetti
6 slices of bacon
2 T. olive oil or melted butter
1/4 t. chili pepper flakes
1 egg
1/3 c. parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Takes just minutes to prepare! Cut down on the time by purchasing already cooked bacon or preparing the bacon beforehand.

Fry the bacon and place on paper towels to drain. Crumble into tiny bits.

Boil the spaghetti according to the package directions. By the way, any of your long pastas will work here — angel hair, linguine, spaghetti, or vermicelli.

While your noodles boil, combine the crumbled bacon with the oil and pepper flakes in a large bowl. In a small bowl, beat the egg and add the cheese to it.

Drain the pasta and immediately add it to the bacon/pepper mixture. Toss in the egg. The heat from the pasta will cook the egg as you toss it all together. Shake some salt and pepper on top of it all. Voila! You are done! Serve to your hungry family. Don’t forget some salad, preferably a nice, fresh Caesar salad.

Enjoy!

This dish, of course, accompanied our Lemon Basil Salmon a couple of nights ago. I wanted a light sauce for our pasta because the Salmon was the main event that night. Steering away from heavy, creamy, or cheesy sauce, I invented this:

Lemon Basil Linguine
serves 6 as a side dish

4 oz. Linguine
3 T. lemon juice
2 T. olive oil
1/2 c. chicken broth
1/2 t. dried basil
dashes of salt, pepper, and garlic powder

Naturally, start with a large pot of salted, boiling water and cook the pasta according to the directions on the box. When it’s done, drain in a colander.

Toss everything together and serve. This pasta had a mild lemony flavor that went really well with the fish.

I know my DH will be pleased that I decided to write this post. He SO loved the pizza I made last night for supper. Since we have changed our eating habits to strictly limit fatty foods, meats, dairy, and refined grains, we have begun to see pizza in a whole new light; as the high-fat, carb-filled food that it is.

But, alas, I have these things called children who are beginning to think we have totally gone off the deep end with the “health nut” diet. So, to appease and reassure them, I decided to make pizza last night.

With five hungry kids in the house, plus two adults, all of whom seem to have different opinions about pizza (and everything else), I have to make two or three pizzas anyway, so one of them became an ultra-thin-whole-wheat-crust loads-of-veggies pizza. The other was a deep-dish, loads of cheese, pepperoni and olive pizza. Only one member of the family did not eat their supper, and it was unexplainable - Peter usually really digs pizza. He was “off his feed” all day.

So, here is the recipe for the pizza we enjoyed last night - the key is in keeping the crust ultra-thin and limiting the cheese. Then use all your favorite vegetables as toppings. I wish I had taken a photo of it - this blog would be more enjoyable for all of you to read if I included more pictures! When putting the toppings on, don’t be afraid to really load it down with vegetables. I thought I had too many, but they shrink in the oven and I could have used more.

Thin Crust for pizza:
makes approximately 2 - 12 inch really thin pizzas

3/4 c. water
1 t. salt
1 t. sugar
2 T. olive oil
1 c. white flour
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
3/4 t. instant yeast

You may notice when reading the ingredients that there is very little yeast in this recipe. Of course - when making really thin pizza crust, you don’t want it to rise, just be a bit stretchy. The key to this dough is to limit how much you handle it. Kneading releases the gluten — we’re trying to achieve a low-gluten pizza crust.

Put all the ingredients in your bread machine or mixer with dough hooks. Mix only until it is well-combined, no longer. Grease a small bowl and move the dough from the machine to the bowl. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes to one hour.

Next, remove and gently knead, using as little flour and force as possible. Form your dough into a nice smooth ball and put it back into the greased bowl. After another “rising” (it doesn’t really rise, at least not noticeably) you will roll it out and prepare it for baking.

A couple of notes here:
1) I used a greased piece of parchment paper to roll this out on and then moved the pizza (including the parchment) to a preheated stone to bake. This made rolling out easier and less fussy because I didn’t have to worry about being able to slide the crust off of a cutting board and onto the stone. I simply lifted the parchment and carried it to the hot pizza stone.
2) The dough rolled out really nicely with just a little bit of flour and my rolling pin. I read a hint that you can cover the dough with plastic wrap and roll it out that way to even further limit the use of flour.

During the second rising, prepare your toppings and sauce. For toppings, I get out all the veggies I like, line up some empty bowls, and start slicing. Here’s what I used:
1) Thinly sliced sweet onion
2) Thinly sliced green pepper
3) sliced mushrooms
4) green olives
5) black olives
other possibilities: hot peppers, red peppers, black beans, tomatoes, chopped spinach

Sauce:
1 can tomato paste (6 oz.)
4 oz. water
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
1/4 t. basil
1/2 t. oregano
1/2 t. minced garlic, optional

Hint: The basic Italian herbs are Rosemary, Oregano, and Basil. For pizza sauce, I like to go heavy on the Oregano and often don’t even use the rosemary. For pasta sauce, I like to go heavier on the Basil and add some sugar.

Combine all of the sauce ingredients with a whisk. You can add a can of diced tomatoes if you like chunks, but it will make enough to cover 4 pizzas, so double the herbs and be prepared to use the leftover sauce.

Cheese: Hey, it’s not a pizza without cheese. I used about 3 oz. of low-fat mozzarella cheese and a sprinkle of low-fat Parmesan. That’s for both pizzas. It really was fine with just this small amount of cheese.

Now that your toppings and sauce are ready, you can focus on the crust again. Heat the oven to 450 and put your pizza stones in. If you don’t have a pizza stone, for heaven’s sake, go get one. Or two. They are worth every penny.

Cut the dough in half and place on the aforementioned greased parchment paper. Roll it out. Mine gave me no trouble at all and I got it really thin - probably 1/8 or 1/16 of an inch. Top with sauce, tons of veggies, and just a sprinkle of cheese. Repeat with the other crust.

Take the pizza stones out of the oven (unless you have a peel, in which case I am really jealous. I think a pizza peel will be on next year’s Christmas list), place the topped pizzas on it, and return to the oven.

At the high heat of 450, it will only take about 10 minutes to bake.

Remove, slice — heck, you can figure out the rest!

ENJOY!