This week I’m going to have to do my grocery shopping in batches, so I’m going to break down the prices by meal, referring to various receipts. You’ll see the totals below each meal. This is one of my favorite easy sauces - carbonara. Not so healthy, but oh so delicious. Bacon is the only meat I’m buying this week. My sister-in-law had carbonara at a restaurant last night, so I thought I’d try to be remotely healthy by adding some broccoli. I used frozen chopped broccoli - it was on sale for $.99 and didn’t have anything added to it, so I did it. I’m not familiar with using frozen veggies but this worked great. We also made our own pasta since we had all the ingredients and didn’t want to buy any. This is quick classic that feeds a lot - warning - it doesn’t reheat that well, so try to eat it in one day or one sitting. Here’s how it goes:

Serves 4

Pasta Recipe

8 Slices of Bacon, coursely chopped

1 package of frozen chopped broccoli - or fresh, or any other veggie that suits you, maybe zucchini?

4 egg yolks - you can save the egg whites for an omlette!

1/2 cup of heavy cream

Couple handfuls of Parm

Fresh Thyme - I didn’t have any, so I just used my dried stuff.

Fresh ground pepper, salt

1. Bring a salted pot of water to a boil (or put it on the stove and just wait, ours takes forever). In a small bowl combine egg yolks, cream, and one handful of Parm. Don’t mix too much, just enough to combine everything. Set mixture aside.

2. In the largest fry pan you have - 14 inches is great - heat over medium heat and add a couple turns of olive oil. Add chopped bacon and fry until crispy and brown. Defrost broccoli, and add to the bacon and oil. Let is soak up the bacon oil and fry just a little bit. Season generously with pepper - you want it to have a bit of a kick. Add thyme to taste - about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon.

3. Cook pasta and reserve about 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Drain the pasta and transfer to the fry pan. NOW, TURN THE HEAT OFF. Add about half of your cooking water and the egg and cream mixture. You can even let the pan cool for a few minutes, you just want to make sure you don’t scramble your eggs - they will cook through, but you want them silky not scrambled. Mix everything together and add more water so the sauce is silky and loose. Add the other handful of Parm and serve immediately with fresh ground pepper. You probably won’t need more salt because of the bacon, Parm, and salted pasta water. Bon Appétit!

Grocery Totals:

Eggs, Semolina Flour, Thyme, Salt, Pepper, Oil, Parm - Already had, some carried over from last week.

Frozen Chopped Broccoli - $.99

Heavy Cream - $2.29 (used only 1/2 cup)

Bacon - $4.99 (used half of package)