Chicken Carbonara

One of our favorite indulgent dishes at a local restaurant is their Chicken Carbonara. I thought I'd try and make a much modified healthier version at home that Tommy can eat too. For any purists out there, this definitely isn't a "real" carbonara, but it was a satisfying bowl of comfort food. Now if we can just get Tommy to eat any sort of pasta...

I used a package of GF angel hair pasta. I'm still trying to get the hang of cooking with rice pasta. It seems to instantly go from hard to mushy. I've had trouble finding the sweet spot where it's cooked through but holds together.

Chicken Carbonara

8 oz gluten free pasta
2 cups cooked diced chicken
3 small or 2 large heads of broccoli
4 slices of bacon
1 medium onion, diced
1 can coconut milk
1 cup chicken broth
2 Tbsp potato starch
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. Cut the broccoli into bite sized florets. Peel the stalk and slice into rings. 
3. Cook the broccoli with the pasta according to the directions on the package. Drain and set aside.
4. In a dutch oven sized pot over medium heat, cook the bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon from the pan but leave the fat.
5. Saute the onion in the bacon fat until clear. 
6. Add the coconut milk and nutritional yeast. Whisk together and bring to a gentle boil.
7. In a small bowl, whisk together the potato starch and chicken broth. Add the slurry to the coconut milk. Whisk together so lumps don't form.
8. Add in the chicken and continue to simmer until the chicken is warmed. 
9. Toss the pasta and broccoli with the sauce.

Bacon Wrapped Pineapple

A while back we were going to a BBQ and I wanted to bring some sort of savory sweet appetizer. I was going to do bacon wrapped dates, but the dates had spoiled. Looking around my kitchen, I saw I had dried pineapple rings. And thus, Bacon Wrapped Pineapple was born. These taste like little bites of bacon candy. So easy and delicious. 

Bacon Wrapped Pineapple

4 dried pineapple rings

8 slices of bacon

1. Preheat oven to 350°F

2. Cut each pineapple ring into 6 pieces and each bacon slice into 3 pieces.

3. Wrap a piece of pineapple with a piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick.

4. Back for 20 minutes, flipping halfway through.