Now that I spend my days at home, I occasionally indulge in a little daytime TV. I like to have the Today show on while I’m getting really for the day. (Confession! I lurve me some Kathie Lee and Hoda too!) Usually, I don’t pay attention to the recipes because they seem too pretentious, or complicated, or simple, or weird…you know. But the other day, I saw a recipe for pizza carbonara that I had to try:

Recipe: Pizza carbonara

Ingredients
  • 1/2 pound Applewood bacon slices, cut into 1/2 inch strips
  • 1/4 cup Pecorino Romano, freshly grated
  • salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 fresh 10 oz. dough ball, rolled out into a circle 12-14 inches wide
  • 11/2 cups (about 8 ounces) fresh mozzarella, cut in 1/4 inch slices and grated
  • 1 cup heavy cream, reduced to half a cup
  • 2 scallions, sliced
Preparation

Allow the dough to rest out of the refrigerator for up to two hours so the glutens can relax. Preheat an oven to 425 degrees F. On a well-floured work service, lightly roll out the dough, rotating until about ¼ inch thick. Lightly brush a cookie sheet with olive oil. Place dough onto cookie sheet and pinch into the corners. Trim the tray of any excess dough that drapes over the edges.

Lay the grated mozzarella on top of the dough. Drizzle the reduced cream evenly over the cheese. Add the bacon and grated Pecorino-Romano cheese. Bake the pizza for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the dough begins to pull away from the edges. Remove from the oven and using the back of a spoon, indent two shallow wells towards the center of the pizza, being careful not to apply too much pressure. Crack two eggs into a shallow bowl. Pour an egg into each “well” separately making sure the eggs stay put while cooking.

Return the pizza to the oven for an additional 3 to 4 minutes, or until the cheese and bacon become golden brown. Remove the pizza from the oven again and allow to cool for one minute. Just before serving, drag a knife through the yolks so they break and ooze all over the surface of the pie. Season liberally with freshly cracked black pepper. Add chopped scallions to serve.

 

Sounds good, right? Except for what I actually made was quite a bit different….

My version of pizza carbonara

1. Buy a Jiffy pizza crust and prepare according to package directions.

2. Cover the pizza crust with 3/4 of a bag of Market Pantry parmesan/mozzarella shredded cheese mix. Drizzle with a pint of half and half.

3. Fry up a pound of regular bacon. Chop up whatever you can before your husband eats it and add to the pizza.

4. Chop up some green onions (those are kind of like scallions, right?) and add to the pizza. Put a few dashes of salt and pepper on there too.

5. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese.

6. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes.

7. Separate two egg yolks. (Try with approximately four eggs before getting it right. These broken yolk eggs can be saved for tomorrow’s scrambled egg breakfast.) Make a little pool in the pizza for each egg yolk and VERY CAREFULLY spoon them in.

8. Bake pizza another four minutes.

9. Break the yolks with a knife and spread around pizza. Enjoy!