Courgette Carbonara (Jamie Oliver)

I seem to be making a lot of recipes with courgettes lately! No idea why... just a lot of yummy sounding recipes involve them! And this is another one, taken from Jamie Oliver's website. Carbonara is already so delicious, then add some roasted courgettes to it and it's even better (and with 1 of your 5 a day hopefully!) I feel that this recipe is also very summery, so what better way to say goodbye to our almost non-existent summer than with this dish and nice cold glass of white wine!

For 4 people

Ingredients

Sea salt and black pepper

6 medium green and yellow courgettes (I only used green, but the more diverse the colour, the better!)

500g penne

4 large eggs

100ml double cream

2 generous handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Olive oil

Some kind of yummy porky meat - around 12 slices/1 packet (of lardons) - unfortunately I didn't get hold of any for this, but the meaty flavour deepens the flavours of the dish so it is well worth getting. You could use chopped up pancetta slices, the pre chopped up lardons you can get in the supermarket, grilled bacon chopped up or even some grilled parma ham!

A small bunch of fresh thyme

This is slightly different to Jamie's recipe, as I always like to start with the preparation. Put a large saucepan on the boil, and fill with slightly salted boiling water.

Then start preparing the carbonara mixture, you will need to get the eggs, double cream and grated parmesan in a bowl together and mix well. Season and then set to one side.

Halve and quarter the courgettes lengthways, and slice roughly so they are of a similar shape to the penne.

Then chop up the pancetta - or whatever meat you have chosen to use! The water should by now be boiling, so add the penne to the saucepan.

Get a large frying pan on and add a good amount of olive oil (Jamie says a 'splash'!) and fry the pancetta until crispy. Add the courgette slices and a good sprinkling of black pepper - then my recipe differs slightly from Jamie's here as I wanted my courgettes to have their own flavouring. So I used garlic oil, dried thyme, dried Italian herbs, fresh thyme and gave it a good mix coating the courgettes in the herby garlicky dressing. Fry until golden.

Now here I really did follow Jamie's instructions as he advises to work quickly otherwise the carbonara could end up ruined, as you don't want the eggs to start scrambling!

When the pasta is cooked, drain and keep a bit of the salted water on the side.

Add back to the pan and remove from the heat. Then add a ladleful of the salted water, and then the carbonara sauce and stir together quickly! (Again no scrambly eggs happening here!)

Dish out into four bowls and arrange the courgettes/pancetta on top of the pasta like a garnish. Season and then you're done! Yummy, summery courgette pasta!