Pasta and a Glass of Pinot

Cooking dinner is fun, but you know what’s really fun? Sipping wine while Internet shopping. Or Facebook stalking. Or watching your favorite TV show while the kids clean the house. And yet, even if they ate breakfast and lunch, even if you made them dinner yesterday, right around 6 o’clock, your people are going to take the pinot out of your hand and demand another meal. Which, I’m 98 percent certain, is why the Italians invented carbonara. Whipping up a batch is faster than picking up takeout, and it uses ingredients you probably have around the house anyway – pasta, eggs, bacon, cheese and pepper. Omit the bacon for a vegetarian version, and you’re looking at a yummy homemade meal in the time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta. So how do you omit the bacon when the traditional recipe relies on it? I had no idea. But I ran the question past my friend Lucinda, who is a good cook and never throws a pizza at her family so that she can watch Game of Thrones. Lucinda thought I should use smoked cheddar as a substitute for the smoky bacon and add sauteed eggplant to give the pasta some heft. The smoked cheese was delicious, but the eggplant was problematic. First, it takes at least 30 precious minutes to sweat the eggplant, which, contrary to the name, does not mean lying down with a cool towel while the eggplant works out for you. Second, eggplant is a polarizing vegetable. People either love it or hate it, and if they hate it, they won’t touch it. Not even if you use its sexy nickname: aubergine. Back to square one, I stared into my open refrigerator, looking for inspiration. A half-full jar of sun-dried tomatoes in oil stared back. Sun-dried tomatoes pack a lot of flavor, and, if you squint, vaguely resemble bacon. I didn’t have Parmesan, but I did have a drawer full of goat cheese. Yum. In traditional carbonara, you mix the Parmesan into the raw eggs before you pour the whole shebang over hot pasta. I used an electric mixer to blend the goat cheese and eggs, which made a beautifully creamy pasta sauce. Too bad it tasted like glue. Only blander. I frantically added two more logs of goat cheese – almost a pound, people – and it just got gluier. I thought the phrase “less is more” was just an excuse for Mini Oreos and “tiny diamonds.” But if too much goat cheese was disastrous, maybe less would indeed taste better. Instead of adding a log of goat cheese before the sauce was cooked, I finished the dish with a few crumbles on top. Much better. Every bite of pasta had a quick burst of flavor and wasn’t weighed down by a heavy cheese sauce. The other ingredients were easy. My friend Dee suggested toasting almonds to add a little crunch and smoke. I used rotini instead of traditional spaghetti because those nooks and crannies give the egg something to hold on to. (Use whatever pasta you have handy.) And my favorite brand of sun-dried tomatoes. (Ditto.) And pasteurized eggs or freshly-washed farm eggs. (Because salmonella is a bummer.) Best of all, the entire thing took 20 minutes to prepare from start to finish. Or, as I prefer to say, just enough time to enjoy a glass of wine. Vegetarian Carbonara 6 servings 1 lb. rotini or other dry pasta 3 oz. whole, unsalted almonds 1 Tbsp. olive oil 1 large yellow onion, diced 3 large eggs 3 oz. sun-dried tomatoes in oil, julienned, drained* 3 oz. goat cheese crumbles** 2 oz. fresh basil leaves Freshly ground black pepper to taste (optional) • Fill a pasta pot with water and heat until boiling. Cook pasta according to the “al dente” directions on the package. Reserve ½ cup of hot pasta water before draining. • While the water is heating and pasta is cooking, heat a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the almonds to the dry skillet. Stir often until the almonds are toasted, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool. • Heat the olive oil in the skillet over medium-high heat. Saute the onion until translucent and slightly brown, about 5 minutes. Set onions aside. • Crack the eggs into a small bowl and beat with a mixer until well blended. • After draining the cooked pasta, return it to the pot. With the heat off, add the eggs. Stir until the eggs coat the pasta and start to thicken, but not scramble. Add a little hot pasta water if the sauce needs thinning. • Stir in the sun-dried tomatoes and sauteed onions. • Divide hot pasta evenly onto plates. Top each with two heaping tablespoons of goat cheese crumbles. Coarsely chop the toasted almonds and add 1 tablespoon to each serving. Garnish with sprigs of fresh basil. Season with freshly ground black pepper if desired. * California Sun Dry Sun-Dried Julienne Cut Tomatoes with Herbs, Straub’s, 8282 Forsyth Blvd., Clayton, 314.725.2121, straubs.com ** Whole Foods Market Goat Cheese Crumbles, Whole Foods Market, 1601 S. Brentwood Blvd., Brentwood, 314.968.7744, wholefoodsmarket.com