ewwwww @ the thought of jar carbonara
LOL!
My kids are such snobs, they would't even consider eating it.
Asian cooking is really easy, especially something like black bean sauce. You will need in your cupboard for most asian dishes shaoxing wine, sesame oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce, cornflour, palm sugar (yes you can use regular sugar but with thai cooking especially
IMO its a necessity), for blackbean sauce you'll need good chicken stock (for asian stuff I love the stuff in the tin you get from asian grocer), ginger, cornflour, soy, sesame oil, shaoxing wine, salt sugar and salted blackbeans (roughly chopped). I've got a good recipe at home, but bear might have one off the top of his head.
I often cheat and make a baked carbonara which is great
IMO and I use cream, milk, fresh cheese, bacon, onion and garlic I think I've posted it before will try and find it.