Yes, I know, it's shameless. But the fact is, I had about a half pound of bacon that needed to be used pretty soon, and since it had already been frozen I preferred not to freeze it again. Oddly enough, in the peak of summer I didn't have any tomatoes – the local crop didn't fair very well this year. So much for BLTs... My next thought was a standard: Carbonara! In case you don't know, this is a quick and delicious pasta dish - cook some chopped bacon (or better yet, pancetta) while you heat your pasta water, whisk some eggs, cheese and seasonings together, cook the pasta and marry them all together - seriously, maybe 30 minutes effort. This one has been a “go to” recipe for years, but see, I didn't have any mushrooms, or milk, or parsley? Heck, I didn't even have linguine or fettuccine, but I knew spaghetti would work just fine And I DID have a package of chopped spinach... Spinach and bacon are a great pairing, so I Googled. The one I liked the best was from Clair Robinson on the Food Network. Again, I didn't have fettuccine, let alone SPINACH fettuccine, but her technique relied more on the flavoring of the bacon fat than others and that suited me just fine! Thirty minutes later I was dining. Perhaps a little heavy for this heat wave we've been having – but I discovered something! This version of Carbonara was actually quite good fresh from the fridge! So for the majority of my meals I enjoyed a bacon flavored pasta salad with spinach – not bad for an improv, huh