Chicken Carbonara by Giada de Laurentiis

Tonight I made Chicken Carbonara by Giada de Laurentiis using leftover chicken from last night's dinner. It wasn't horrible, but I don't think that I would make it again. It didn't have a lot of flavor, the sauce was too runny (too much cream), and when it comes to carbonara I prefer something much closer to the real thing such as Sophia Loren's recipe for spaghetti carbonara. Sophia's recipe is more traditional to me- much closer to what I had in Northern Italy and has better flavor.

As for Giada's recipe, I used bacon instead of pancetta, which I think is a reasonable substitution. The pancetta I found here was just way too expensive, and I like bacon well enough anyway. I used more bacon that called for and less chicken, just because I didn't have quite the amount of leftover chicken I needed. Besides I like the bacon flavor. I added the garlic after the bacon was mostly done frying so it wouldn't burn. And I drained off most of the grease before adding the chicken because there was just way too much grease. Maybe if you use pancetta there isn't as much grease. I left out the walnuts because I don't like them, especially in dinner food. The flavor just wasn't that great. We all ate it, and I will eat the leftovers, but I don't think I will make it again.