My Take on Carbonara

So beside fashion and beauty, my first and probably most loved passion is cooking. From around age 8 I used to hover round the kitchen begging my mum to let me help her and it eventually paid off as I am now a reasonably good cook. I thought it might be nice to share some of my favourite meals and recipes, so here's the carbonara-esque meal I made yesterday that went down a treat:

You will need:

200ml crème fraîche
1 Brocolli head chopped into small trees
300g tagliatelle
1 garlic clove crushed
1 diced onion
150g of diced cooking bacon/pancetta
130g baby chestnut mushrooms, halved
50g cheddar, grated
1tbsp olive oil
1 tsp of thyme
sprinkling of nutmeg
salt and pepper for seasoning(Serves 2-3)

Start off by cooking your tagliatelle in boiling water in a pan for around 10 minutes, I tend to add a bit of salt and a splash of oil to stop the pasta from sticking together. Just before the pasta is cooked add in the broccoli for around three minutes then remove both and drain, preserving the water in a bowl, and set aside. 
Meanwhile, heat up the oil in a heavy based frying pan and add your bacon and diced onion and leave them to sizzle for around 5 minutes. Then add the mushrooms, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper to your liking, and fry on a medium heat allowing the mushrooms to sweat slightly but be sure to not overcook the mushrooms as they're quite nice crunchy. 
Finally, on a low heat add the tagliatelle and broccoli to the pan along with the crème fraîche, cheddar and a sprinkling of nutmeg. Toss everything together, adding some of the preserved pasta water if you need to loosen the mixture. 
Serve immediately with some parmesan on top should you so wish. 

I personally find 'proper' carbonara too creamy so I was glad I found a way to make something similar that would sit better in my stomach, and a super quick one too, this whole process took 30mins. I hope this recipe works out for you guys!

Enjoy, Noni xx