Pasta Carbonara Recipe from Suzanne

I love shortcuts like puff pastry – big impact with little effort. Here we can add whatever pizza toppings you like on a pre-made crust that is different than any other. Use the tomato for an unusually good topping taste. Ingredients: 1 9x13 puff pastry sheet, defrosted, cut into 6 rectangles, and chilled 6 ounces easy melt cheese, like mozzarella 1 large tomato, cut into 6 slices 6 small basil leaves Salt 1 egg, beaten with a little milk to make an egg wash Parchment paper Optional: 6 pepperoni slices 6 mushroom slices Dash of chopped rosemary leaves Dash of red pepper flakes over or under the tomato Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Lay the tomato slices on a sheet of paper towel and salt them gently. Top with another paper towel and press to engage each tomato. Here we want to weep the juices from the slices a bit so that they don’t spoil the baking/rising of the dough. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lay the pastry rectangles on it with some spacing. Get the next few steps done quickly so that the dough remains chilled until right before it goes into the oven. Chilled dough will bake out flakier since the butter in the dough remains together and stiff so that it bubbles better as it bakes – and bubbles make those airy flakes! Pierce each rectangle several times with a fork to prevent over-bubbling and irregular rising. Sprinkle the center of each rectangle with 1+ ounce of cheese, leaving a small border around all the edges. Next, lay the basil leaf, pepperoni (if using) and a tomato slice on each rectangle…in that order! Brush the edges of each pastry with the egg wash to promote browning. Run this right into the over at 400 degrees for about 25+ minutes or until the pastry edges brown. Careful when scarfing these down – the moisture in the tomato makes it retain heat long after the pastry has cooled. Don’t burn your tongue!