Egg free, wheat free pasta carbonara

Driving home from school today asking the kids what they feel like for dinner... Um, pasta. "Pasta carbonara?" pipes up Miss 10. So, pasta carbonara it was.

I had some super yum Rice & Quinoa penne in the cupboard - perfect.

First of all I put a pot of boiling water on the stove.

Carbonara Sauce:
300g diced bacon
3 large mushrooms
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 stick of celery
1 block light cream cheese
1 tub Philadelphia Cream for Cooking (or 300g cream)
10g olive oil
                                          25g white wine
                                          1/2 cup frozen peas
                                          Parmesan cheese

I threw the garlic, onions and celery (onions peeled & halved, garlic peeled, celery roughly chopped) into the Thermomix speed 7, 5 seconds. Add oil and sauté (measuring cup off) 3 minutes, 100 degrees, speed slow. 
For those cooking in the traditional way: Finely chop the garlic, onions and celery and saute in oil over high heat until onion and celery are just softening.

While the onion mix is sauteing, slice all of the mushrooms. Add your pasta to the boiling water on the stove and cook until al dente.
Add the bacon and mushrooms to the onion mix and continue sauteing until mushrooms have softened and bacon is starting to crisp - Thermomix 100 degrees, 4 minutes, speed slow (measuring cup off)
Add the white wine and saute until the alcohol has cooked off - Thermomix 100 degrees, 4 minutes, speed slow (measuring cup off)
Add the cream cheese, cream and peas and stir until heated through and peas are cooked - Thermomix 100 degrees, 7 minutes, speed slow (measuring cup off)

 Strain your pasta and then stir through the sauce and serve with freshly grated parmesan.

A little decadent, but, hey, it has veggies in it, so its not all bad and I used lower fat options when it came to the cream and cream cheese.  Oh well, no harm in having a slightly "bad" meal every now and again :)

Yum!