Cooking Abilities

Ever since I was a kid, I am fond of eating different types of cuisine. My personal favorites were Chinese, Mexican and of course Italian. Whenever I have my free time, all I do is either read a book or watch Food Network. I am fascinated with those chefs and culinary experts! Don't get me wrong here, I'm a BBA grad but I do have a sister, a Hotel and Restaurant Management graduate -- she's the one who is into cooking and I, uhmm... into eating! Haha.

In my 25 years of existence, I have never attempted to cook other kinds of food or those with recipes except hotdogs, fried chix, eggs etc. Yeah, yeah only those that can be fried, I know! I love eating but I hate cooking, maybe that's the reason why some people say I'm a food critic. Hmmmm... does that make sense? But there was this one time that made me realized that I can actually cook! I'm at home, watching Everyday Italian and saw Giada cooking one of their family specialties, the carbonara. It seems pretty easy so I scribbled down the ingredients and everything that I needed to know. I told myself that I'm going to make one someday.

That recipe has been in my wallet for a year I think until I finally decided to do it. So last night, I made Rigatoni a la Carbonara. Sounds luxurious and hard to pull-off but it was totally easy! When I served it, my mom was like, "You did this? Seriously?" and from that reaction, I should say I was really proud of my little cooking abilities. Haha!

Here's a pic, ingredients and procedure of cooking :)

My version of Rigatoni a la Carbonara

Ingredients:
Hungarian sausage (sliced into bite-sized)
Pancetta (sliced thinly)
Mushroom (sliced thinly)
Salt
Black pepper
2 Eggs
1 pack of cream
1 can of cream of mushroom
Parmesan cheese
Fresh flat parsley leaves

Procedure:
Saute pancetta, sausage, and mushrooms in a pan until golden brown. Season with black pepper and remove pan from heat.

In a bowl, beat the eggs and cream. Add salt, pepper and parmesan.

In a large casserole, boil water. Add some salt (must taste like a sea) then add the pasta and cook until al dente, about 10 to 12 minutes for rigatoni. Drain pasta. Do not rinse with water. According to Giada, this will make sauce to stick.

While the pasta is still hot, return it back to the pot. Add the browned pancetta, sausages and mushrooms then mix well. Add the cream mixture and coat the pasta completely. Top it off with a little parmesan and chopped parsley.

Here's Giada's Recipe

PS I hate measuring so you decide based on the quantity of your ingredients and to your taste. Also, you may use any kind of pasta that you want. I preferred using rigatoni because of the hearty, chunky sauce. See, I'm learning! =)

Bon appetite!