Carbonara Pasta

My latest carbonara was quite an epic fail.
bland, not so creamy and just 'un'delicious.
even my attempt to recook it also failed and even got worse. I added more milk, salt and some basil leaves to create that pesto effect but it didn't work to salvage my dish. when I ate it, I felt like throwing up, lol.
I figured that next time, I'm not going to wash the pasta after cooking it in salt water. I think that was one mistake. not sure if using just milk was also a problem - yes, I omitted the cream.
the butter was fine too and the ham was not too mediocre - though that was the cheapest one I chose haha
I have been washing the pasta under cold water to stop the cooking time after draining. that is something I learned after seeing how my spaghetti got soggy even though I followed the correct minutes of cooking time. well, what I should do next time is to boil the pasta two minutes before it becomes aldente when preparing a carbonara dish...