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Food Thread: Ahh...Spaghetti Carbonara! You Know! A Great Low-Carb Meal!

Thanks to the cruel commenters from last week's Food Thread^TM, I am currently dreaming about Spaghetti Carbonara. You know...the delicious pasta dish that is made from...um...pasta...which is a carb...

Bastards!

I think it is an excellent example of the beautiful simplicity of Italian cooking. Hell it only has five ingredients! Although I do like a sprinkle of fresh parsley on mine, so in my kitchen it has a huge and unwieldy six ingredients!

Spaghetti. Pecorino Romano. Eggs. Guanciali. Pepper. Pretty simple. And pretty damned easy. And pretty damned delicious.

But don't you dare deviate from that list, or you will be hunted down by the Italian food police. How to make Spaghetti Carbonara the right way.

When made according to a traditional recipe it is a spectacular dish. But...I have used bacon and Parmesan cheese, and you know something? It's delicious with those decidedly nontraditional ingredients. I think the technique is the most important thing with this dish.

And speaking of nontraditional! That egg yolk sitting on top of the pasta in the photo? Yeah...I will be stealing that for my Carbonara.

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Vegetarianism is a medically defensible diet, and has a significant cultural history. Buddhists, Hindus, and others advocate vegetarianism, although I do not think it is required. And there are philosophical reasons for vegetarianism that, while I do not subscribe to them are again logically defensible. But these are defensible stances only because one can eat a healthful vegetarian diet with just a bit of understanding of nutrition. And of course it is a very old idea, so society has figured out how do do it!

But veganism is something different, and it is extremely difficult to eat a healthful vegan diet without vitamin and mineral supplementation, even if one is able to eat a sufficient number of calories to sustain life. Unlike this poor woman...
Vegan raw food diet influencer Zhanna D’Art dies of suspected starvation: report
Obviously this wasn't veganism as part of religious practice, although one could certainly argue that her chaotic and illogical rationale for her horrid diet was post-modernist religion. But the idea of manipulating one's diet in pursuit of a higher consciousness or spiritual enlightenment or psychological health seems dangerously close to the lunacy of the 15-year-old girl who sees a fatty in the mirror and decides to purge and diet...or even the psychologically damaged or manipulated teen who is pressured into mutilating "gender reassignment" surgery.

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I love this sort of stuff! That's a Greek Salad, but there is a rough equivalent called an Israeli Salad, and I am sure there is something similar all over the Mediterranean. It isn't complicated at all, but obviously the better the ingredients the better the end result, which is why it's so delicious on the beach in Tel Aviv or on Mykonos, but not so good at a Kansas City restaurant in February!

Which is why you should order the Mac & Cheese and a slab of ribs, but I digress!

Here's a basic recipe for Greek Salad, although I think the avocado is weird and doesn't belong. And my personal opinion is that the vegetables should be cut on the smaller side...I hate finding a quarter of a large tomato in my salad!

Oh...seed the cucumbers. Just do it and don't argue.

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I had never heard of Calabacitas, nor have I ever seen this website, so while I can't vouch for the recipe, it looks pretty straightforward and quite similar to one of my go-to vegetable dishes!

Well, except for the cheese garnish, which sounds delicious, and something I will be doing the next time I make my version!

Easy Calabacitas Recipe

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I was asked by one of the more gluttonous eaters in my world for biscuits and gravy. Well, technically I teased him with sausage and gravy when he claimed to be avoiding carbs. I have a couple of good biscuit recipes that I use, But I realized that not only do I not have a sausage gravy recipe, I don't think I have ever looked at one! Because it's gravy, which is simple unless you are under time constraints at 5:00pm on Thanksgiving...THEN it gets really complicated and difficult. So off to the intertubes I went, and figured that Ree Drummond, the irritating rancher's wife on The Food Network would probably have a good one. Her Sausage gravy recipe is fine, although I like more sausage. But it is such a simple recipe...really just a technique...that you can't go wrong. Just make sure your biscuits are up to par! But that may be a problem if your grandmother wasn't from the south...
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Cod fritters are great! Actually, most fish fritters are fantastic, but for some reason I have had salt cod fritters percolating through my food thoughts recently. And since the Brits sure do know how to fry fish, I figured I'd start there. But this recipe for Salt cod fritters is a bit busy, and it has the additional problem of being written in a foreign language. What the hell is a "hob?" I wish the UK would teach proper English in their schools...

Anyway, here is Emeril Lagasse's recipe, which is a bit simpler. Salt Cod Fritters
I think they are worth the trouble, especially if you have a bunch of frying oil in the refrigerator. Which I have because I am a cheap bastard. As long as I haven't fried fish in it I hold onto it after letting it cool and then filtering it through a coffee filter. Eventually it breaks down, but it can be used at least a few times.

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Now THIS is my kind of food pyramid, although there really ought to be a bottle of bourbon at the top.

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The oyster imperative remains in effect, especially now that we are entering the summer months. Yup, I'm not afraid of oysters in the summer! (Except that my usual source was sold out, so I am an oysterless Dildo, and you know how bad that is!) And send pork rib roasts from the front end of the pig where all the good and fatty meat lives, carrots that don't taste like stalky chalk, garlic...lots of garlic! (but no basil!), well-marbled NY strip steaks and elk backstrap to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

And don't think that the rest of you are off the hook with maple syrup and French Toast: I'm still watching you! And I am watching you perverts who shake Manhattans and keeping a list for the Burning Times.

And yes, I used to demand fancy bourbon, but let's face it, $1,200 for a bottle of bourbon is just stupid, insulting, and a ghastly affront to most people's palates and wallets. I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.