Any Dish That Begins With CARB...

How beautiful is this?

Carbonara is one of my favorite dishes to eat, but not to prepare. If any of you ask me the one dish I absolutely hate to make, I would vehemently answer "CARBONARA!" Every time I make it I feel like I am running a marathon with two broken legs. You need to have nearly all of your ingredients prepped and ready before you begin cooking your bacon, because once the bacon is done, you have about 30 seconds to chop it up, add the noodles, make the sauce and whisk in your eggs fast enough so that they don't scramble. However, on the bright side, once you're done being a maniac in the kitchen you get to sit down and enjoy this delicious meal, with a few glasses of wine of course. I have made numerous carbonara recipes, from healthy to heart attack on a plate. After making this particular recipe by Emeril Lagasse, I find that with food, along with everything else in life, "less is more." (Nacho cheese does not apply to that.) The healthy recipe I tried was by Bethenny Frankel--which was AMAZING by the way--but this one was better. She used turkey bacon instead of regular(which is sacreligious in my opinion,) soy milk instead of regular, and whole wheat pasta. My love for Bethenny runs deep and her recipe was very yummy so I will post a link to her recipe at the bottom as well. Some of the others I tried used heavy cream(whole milk works just as good in my opinion,) along with excessive amounts of fancy cheeses. This resulted in a dish that was too rich and when a dish is too rich you can say sayonara to leftovers, blegh! Ok now on to the winner, Emeril! I found this recipe after scouring the internet for an hour in search for the perfect carbonara recipe. His recipe seemed so simple and easy, that I almost didn't even make it. But Emeril is one of the greatest so I trusted his recipe and decided to go for it. His recipe was one of the only ones that didn't call for milk or cream. All it called for was bacon(duh,) spaghetti(I used linguine-which I find to be a perfect fit for carbonara,) garlic, parmesan of course, eggs and parsley(I sub'd for chives, because chives are the shit.) I also added cooked chicken, because my husband has to have his meat. The end result was so delicious that I was standing over the skillet(after two servings,) spooning more into my dome. Who has been there before? That's what I thought. It was creamy and delectable but not too overwhelming, the perfect combo. I will say that when you go for the leftovers add a bit of milk or water before re-heating it because it was a tad dry, but that still didn't stop me from devouring the entire bowl. Overall, this was the best carbonara recipe YET!

Emeril's Classic Spaghetti Carbonara - The winner

Bethenny's Low Fat Pasta Carbonara - If you are wanting a healthier version that still kicks ass

Shammy Says "BAM!"