It's been a while since I've cooked at home, and the last few weeks have been one of those periods where all I eat is junk/fast food, so last night I took what little initiative I had and trekked off to the local grocer to grab a few things to make a simple, hearty pasta. I took a quick glance at the all but empty fridge and cupboards, only to see some bacon, a wedge of Romano cheese and half an onion, so a carbonara like pasta came to mind. I knew I wanted something rich and heavy. Something filling and comforting. As my diet has been crap anyway, bacon and cream didn't concern me the least.

As far as Carbonara goes, I've seen it made a dozen ways, some use egg, some reduce cream, some add thicken the cream with roux or cornstarch, some add so much cheese you'd think they were making mac and cheese. I'm somewhere in the middle, and it often depends on the exact type of dish I'm aiming for. In this case, I knew I wasn't going for a traditional interpretation of Carbonara anyway, so I took a little of each approach.

I wasn't even sure what I was going to put in the dish when I got to the store. I was half thinking the traditional peas, but wanted something a little fresher with a bit more "green". Then I saw some "baby" portobellas. For those who do not know this, Portobella and the "baby" portobella mushrooms are basically just mature white button mushrooms that we've all seen in the market for years. Because they are more mature, they have a bit more earthiness than the little white buttons that American consumers came to expect along with their iceberg lettuce back in the 70s. I digress.

Armed with an 8 ounce pack of sliced "baby 'bellas", I then grabbed some hydroponic "baby" spinach. I'm not sure why marketers haven't coined a better phrase than "baby" for vegetables, but in the case of spinach, I tend to opt for the baby option simply because I don't like having to sit there and stem the more mature leaves. If the option to buy bunch spinach is available, I'll take that every time.

A pint of heavy cream, some garlic and a package of fresh fettucini later, I was heading back to the house. I tend to not eat fettucini, but when I do, I always buy fresh. I just do not like how dried fettucini cooks up, no matter how much water I cook it in. It's just too thick and pasty for my taste, no matter the dish.

So, all told I have:

• .5lb raw bacon
• 1/2 of a Vidalia Onion diced
• 4 cloves of garlic minced
• 8oz sliced mushrooms
• 5oz baby spinach leaves
• 1 pint heavy cream
• approx. 1/2 cup shredded Romano cheese
• 8oz fresh fettucini noodles

Standard items such as kosher salt, a pepper mill, olive oil as well as a couple tablespoons all purpose flour were also used.

First step was to render the bacon. In this case, I thinly sliced the bacon and cooked it over medium heat in a heavy bottom sauté pan until crispy. Make sure you occasionally stir the bacon around, as the solids from the fat will settle to the bottom of the pan; you don't want to scorch them. Also, depending on the size of the pan, you want to make sure the bacon cooks evenly. Once the bacon is crispy, with a slotted spoon remove the bacon to a plate lined with a paper towel, or in my case, I save brown paper bags for this, to absorb any additional grease.

Pour off most of the bacon fat, obviously being careful as hot bacon grease burns are no fun. Pouring it off into a clean Pyrex measuring cup or some other clean heat resistant container allows you to save it for future use. If not saving it, at least allowing it to cool makes it much easier to discard later. As far as future use, health concerns aside, a tablespoon added to some other oil adds a lot of flavor, be it green beans, potatoes, you get the idea. I doubt I need to rehash the "pork fat rules" mantra that's been made so famous by some guy on TV…

So, with a little of the bacon fat already in the pan, we can add our onions, garlic and mushrooms, and cook over medium high heat until the mushrooms have completely given up their moisture. You may need to add a little oil to the pan depending on how much bacon fat you left in the pan, as mushrooms have a propensity to absorb fat before they give back their moisture, which is the goal. Otherwise, the mushrooms will release their juice back into the sauce, muddying it up and thinning it out.

Once the mushrooms, garlic and onion are sufficiently cooked down (give or take 5 minutes, depending on the level of heat and size of the mushroom), I simply dusted the mixture with a couple of tablespoons of the flour. This serves two purposes. It's going to bind with any remaining fat, to keep our sauce from being greasy, and it's going to help thicken the sauce. Bear in mind the goal is to only have enough fat to keep the vegetables from sticking, and only enough flour to bind with remaining fat. Too much of either and you'll get a gloppy mess. Less is definitely more here. If the sauce needs to reduce a little, or you need a little more cheese, that's fine. Trying to add liquid back to the glue to thin it out not so much fun.

Stir the flour into the vegetable mixture over medium heat for a minute or two, giving a little time to cook out a bit of the starch. You can now add your cream, and reduce the heat a bit. You may have noticed I haven't added the spinach yet, as A) I like my spinach nice and green, and B) since it's the small "baby" type, it will take even less time to cook. So now you can add the spinach, stirring it into the sauce. As with the mushrooms, the spinach will give off a little liquid, but that's OK with me. Once the spinach is wilted, stir in about 1/2 a cup of grated cheese, and check the consistency. It may need to cook down a bit, or add a touch more cheese. One thing to always remember about pasta sauces is that the pasta will absorb a bit of the sauce, so you always want it a bit thinner than your final product, especially if you'll be adding the pasta in the sauce as in this case.

I've mentioned it before, but I generally put my pot of water on for the pasta about the same time I make the sauce. Depending on the complexity of the sauce, I'll either keep it on medium, or go straight to high. This way, I can time the pasta with the sauce. I hate nothing worse than having cooked pasta sitting in the strainer cooling and clumping. So we've got our boiling, salted water. For wider noodles like fettucini, I will add a tablespoon or so of olive oil, simply to help keep the pasta from sticking as the starch is released, thin pastas I skip the oil. With fresh noodles, it only takes about 2-3 minutes in a roiling boil. Basically when the noodles are completely floating, you can remove and strain. Completely drain the fettucini, as we don't want to thin out the sauce anymore than it is (that is, unless it's gotten thicker than you want. A little pasta water is a great way to thin a sauce, much better than tap water).

Toss the noodles in the sauce, adjust the salt (though between the bacon, cheese, and properly salted water for the noodles it shouldn't need much), top with a little fresh grated cheese and cracked pepper, and enjoy!