Vegetarian Carbonara

Basic Vegetarian Carbonara Recipe:

Ingredients:
-1 lb linguine
-1 tablespoon olive oil
-3 shallots
-2 -3 garlic cloves
-1/4 cup cream (room temp)
-4 egg yolks (room temp)
-3/4 cup parmesan cheese or 3/4 cup romano cheese
-salt

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/vegetarian-carbonara-449852#ixzz1wlUCz0QJ

For this recipe I cut all of the amounts in half and used a combination of macaroni and gemeli pasta that I had leftover -- it's fine to use any pasta.

Boil a large pot of salted water and begin cooking the pasta.

                           While the pasta is cooking, cook the shallots and garlic in the olive oil.

Drain the pasta and reserve a mug full of the pasta water to be used later.

Add the pasta to the pan of shallots and garlic and stir.

Then turn off the heat and stir the pasta for two minutes.

Add the cream and stir, then add the egg yolks and stir. If the sauce needs to be loosened as some of the reserved pasta water.

At this point I added some spinach leaves and let them wilt a little bit -- just to add a little color in the pasta.

Spoon into bowls and then serve topped with cheese.

This carbonara was really easy to make and you could easily add any vegetables to the pasta to make the dish healthier and more colorful. This would be a good dish to make for an easy summer dinner especially since the serving size can easily be cut in half or doubled.