Day 31: Whatever tickles your fancy

A few things that have been going on here lately…

Rob is currently on his surgery rotation.  Surgery is considered an elective in his program, so its supposed to be really easy.  His first week was not, however.  He was super busy, working all kinds of hours.  But her really enjoyed it, so it wasn’t so bad.  His second week he got to take an “unofficial vacation” because his attending had the week off.  We bummed around the house a lot, went to the beach, went outlet shopping, and Rob brushed up on his adobe skills and learned all the new stuff for using the new Adobe Master Suite…which is really cool, by the way.  Hurricane Earl came right by us, but we barely even got any rain from it.  It was so hyped up and then nothing happened, which is definitely a good thing.  Then Rob’s parent’s came in town for labor day weekend and we went to the beach again, Adeline took her first steps (which she has yet to do again…) and we all ate lots of good food.  Which brings me to a new recipe we tried that I want to share because it was SOOOO good.  It was our first time trying homemade carbonara and it was delicious.  Just a little warning though, it is super rich!  Here’s the recipe with our changes in parenthesis:

Cinnamon Pancetta Carbonara

Giada De Laurentiis

Ingredients

• 4 slices bacon, chopped
• 4 slices pancetta, chopped (we just used 8 slices of bacon and no pancetta)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 cups whipping cream (I only had 3/4 cup heavy cream, so I used that plus 1 1/4 cup milk.  We also didn’t drain the bacon grease to make up for the lack of cream)
• 1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan
• 6 large egg yolks
• 18 ounces fresh fettuccine (yes, we did make fresh pasta and it was so good!)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives (didn’t have any, so instead we used one small onion diced and cooked it with the bacon)

Directions

Saute the bacon and pancetta in a heavy large frying pan over medium heat until almost crisp, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the cinnamon over the bacon and pancetta and saute until the bacon is crisp and golden, about 2 minutes longer. Cool. (This is important so you don’t scramble the eggs!) Whisk in the cream, cheese, and yolks to blend.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the fettuccine and cook until it is just tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes (ours takes a little longer than 3 minutes). Drain. Add the fettuccine to the cream mixture and toss over medium-low heat until the sauce coats the pasta thickly, about 5 minutes (do not boil). Season the pasta, to taste, with salt and pepper. Transfer the pasta to a large wide serving bowl. Sprinkle with chives and serve.

Anyway, after recovering from all the horribly fattening but absolutely delicious food, we said goodbye to Rob’s parents and got back to the usual grind.  But not really.  Rob’s attending is working nights this week, so Rob basically is off all day and then just waits for a call at night.  The other night he had to go in for a couple hours, but was home by 10:30 and he didn’t get paged at all in the night.  Last night he didn’t get called in at all!  Hopefully this will be a trend for the rest of the week!  I had a doctor’s appt the other day and everything is normal and on track with the baby (except that I’ve gained a few more pounds than I was anticipating, probably due to this weekend’s indulgences!).  So that’s our lives for the past couple weeks.  I hope you all are having a great day!