Spring Carbonara

With a few rainy days in store, an abundance of eggs from the girls (whom I need to officially introduce to you all soon), and with my attempt to add fresh greens to everything, I decided June 1st was a good day to post an eggy pasta that was still spring-appropriate.

If you’re like me, you have these weird food rules: pasta is hearty and therefore isn’t the greatest post for the first day of June. It should be something fresh and garden-welcoming. However, I am way behind on posts and this tasted so good, I decided the fresh eggs and greens made it a spring pasta dish, and the dreary days validated its heartiness. So, there.

Two things: I have never made carbonara (or even eaten it), and I always make soup with my leftover veggies that I find hanging out in the crisper...as long as they are not turning into a strange looking beer-like substance. (You know that brown puddle that forms in the bottom of the drawer if you leave greens in there for a few months? What? You don’t leave greens in your crisper for a few months? Way to live on the wild side.) So anyway, today, when I discovered leftover Swiss chard (BUT FRESH, AND SPRING-LIKE) and a half a leek in my crisper that was still looking…well, crisp, I decided it was time to woman-up and make something other than soup with these leftover veggies. Now, I understand pasta is almost as easy a way out as soup. But, being a pasta I’ve never concocted before makes this venture valid.


I researched several basic carbonara recipes and wrote down what generally goes into them. Basically, egg and cheese is what makes the traditional sauce, and all the recipes seem to have pancetta or bacon in them. I can see already that this dish is comfort food (aka- fatty fat fat), and I like it.

I decided that adding my oh-so spring-like veggies made this a “healthy” and “gourmet” comfort food, and therefore you can eat it whenever you’d like. You’re welcome.

Spring Minestrone Soup

May is a confusing time for us Mainers. The days fill up with leftover April showers, the smell of fresh-cut grass is in the air, birds begin chattering/bragging up a storm about the beefy worms they are finding, and us Mainers enter the period of spring confusion. We're ready for summer because the last official day of winter has passed. We even try to wear our shorts and bathing suits on 55 degree days, just to convince ourselves that it is, in fact, getting warmer and that summer is right around the corner.
"Maybe if I wear some flip-flops today, or crack the windows, I won't notice it's raining and feels like, well...55 degrees." I have this train of thought daily in the spring, and usually I just get chilled and cranky, and then accept (for at least the rest of the day, and usually start over again the next) that it is still too cold to be summer. But that does mean one neat thing: I can still sneak a comforting, winterish dish into the dinner menu without feeling like it is out of place.

I am an avid follower of the food blog SimplyRecipes. I was searching for spring dishes one rainy afternoon when I came across SR's Spring Minestrone Soup. I thought, "How cool! It's the best of both worlds: springy but still a nice, warm soup." SR's recipes have never failed me, so I set out to make this soup that evening and it was just perfect! I love that it has more unusual vegetables in it than your classic minestrone- artichoke hearts, chickpeas, asparagus...and the best part is, you swirl pesto into it at the end!!!
YES PLEASE, CAN I GET A "SWIRLY PESTO?" I have no idea what that is, But.It.Is EXCITING!