What to Cook Tonight #3

We're heading back to Europe with our flavour profiles — all things pizza, pasta, and salad (the perfect trio). Mushroom Carbonara, a Pizza Party & a fresh and fabulous Niçoise to balance things out.

Rose making Mushroom Carbonara at home in Wānaka

Hello hello,

Happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrate! We hope you have a relaxing and nourishing Sunday.

Our first recipe for this week is a Mushroom Carbonara. Growing up, carbonara was on weekly rotation in our household. Rose doesn’t like making vegetarian meals that feel like they are missing something — so in this recipe we use garlicky mushrooms in place of the traditional pancetta/bacon. If you don’t love mushrooms as much as we do, you can leave them out. And of course, you can add in some crispy fried pancetta or bacon too.

Italians may balk at the inclusion of egg whites — we don’t want to miss out on valuable protein or waste precious egg whites! And the broccoli… you know we love every opportunity to sneak in some greens, and they are a very welcome addition. The broccoli florets soak up the flavours of the egg and parmesan sauce wonderfully. We like to quickly blanch the broccoli so it still has a nice bit of crunch (we are not fans of over-cooked broccoli) but if this is too al dente for your liking, you can cook it a little longer. This recipe is also great with asparagus when it’s in season.

Mushroom Carbonara

You can play with this recipe depending on how you are feeling and what you are craving. If you’re feeling tired and lacking energy, it’s a good chance to up the greens and use lots of broccoli and sometimes a handful of rocket to keep it really fresh. If you’re craving some comfort and tlc, go hard on the parm. This is such a simple, satisfying, and healthy-ish dinner. Learning to listen to your body and become attuned to what it needs is a good way to check in with yourself and nourish yourself. Use the best-quality pasta you can for this recipe, as it won’t break and fall apart. Gluten-free pasta also works well here.

Let us know what you think of this recipe! We hope you love it as much as we do.

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Hosting your own pizza night will not only save you money on takeout, but is also a lot of fun and is very delicious! It’s a great way to get everyone engaged and helping out in the kitchen. This week we are sharing recipes for our three favourite pizzas — a Three Cheese & Potato, a Mushroom Margherita, and a Classic Chorizo. Annabel is also very partial to a pizza sauce, cheese, mushroom, anchovy, caper, and olive situation — but we’re not sure how many of you share that preference!