Spaghetti alla Carbonara

I haven't cooked this one in a while, but it's definitely worth including in the archives here...  The backstory comes from when I was just starting to think about cooking for myself more, was hungry one night but didn't want to get groceries.  With help from Google and the Food Network, I found a recipe for which I actually had all of the key ingredients on hand - pasta, eggs, bacon, garlic, olive oil and parmesan cheese. Here goes:

The Recipe

1 lb spaghetti
4 oz bacon (or pancetta), chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 eggs
1 cup grated Parmesan
pepper

Get all your ingredients queued up because this moves fast.  Start your pasta.  Beat the egg and Parmesan together.  Meanwhile, heat your oil, then bacon until crisp, then garlic for about a minute.  Your pasta should be done here - add it to the pan with about 1/2 cup of the water.  After that's mixed, turn off the heat and add the egg/cheese and some pepper.  Eat.

Notes

Returning to this recipe many, many times over the following months, I refined it to my liking with a few footnotes to the Food Network recipe:

• Start the oil just a minute or two after the pasta goes in the pot.
• Plop the bacon in with around five minutes to go. It hits that perfect point quickly! One minute it looks like it'll end up undercooked, the next it's crisping up...
• I suck at cracking eggs.
• Don't strain the pasta. Just pour out as much water as you can without losing any noodles, and the rest of the pot gets tossed with the rest of the mix.
• Never bother with parsley or (ugh) peas.

After a quick but intense 15 minutes or so, you too can end up eating this: