Pasta on a Wednesday Night

The Location: Cambridge, MA
The Book: Jamie's Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver
The Recipe: Mini Shell Pasta with a Creamy Smoked Bacon and Pea Sauce
The Soundtrack: David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust

I had some pancetta that I needed to use. So I perused the cookbookshelf (now it actually fits in my kitchen!) two weeks ago when I knew we were going to have a car to go grocery shopping, and came across this recipe. I have made it before, but it's been quite sometime. And the inclusion of mint intrigued me - the thought of having fresh mint (regardless of how extremely expensive it is) in the dead of winter made me happy. So two weeks ago I bought the supplies to make this recipe. Then I made this awesome pasta a fazool from the Rancho Gordo cookbook. Then I made Caribbean Pork stew with plantains from another cookbook. Then it was the Super Bowl and I made so much football food that my head was spinning. Sometimes I forget that there are only two of us.

I still needed to use the pancetta.

So after a few days of eating left over wings, and some more of that Caribbean Pork stew I realized I really needed to use the pancetta. I had a big hunk of it because a while ago (I didn't realize exactly how long) I needed pancetta for another recipe and the store didn't have any options for slices, just a giant hunk. I pulled the pancetta out of the crisper and unwrapped it. It passed the sniff test, I noticed a spot on the side of the hunk, but I decided that it was pepper. Then I saw the fuzzy greenish blue tint on the top. When I told Mr. D that the pancetta was moldy, he said "It's been in there for like four months." To which I responded "Yeah, that's why I wanted to use it." Four months? Dang.

Luckily that same day two weeks ago that I bought all the other ingredients I doubled up on my bacon purchase. The recipe called for ten slices of pancetta or bacon. Woot!

The bacon I had was thick sliced. I seriously considered not using ten slices because the recipe just called for bacon. Considered.

Can I just note for a second that I think it's hysterical that this recipe calls for ten slices of bacon? Jamie Oliver is doing this whole food revolution, which I think is amazing, focusing on healthy eating and cooking. TEN. Slices. of. BACON. Sauteed in olive oil AND butter.

I got a little distracted while I was cooking the bacon because I was reading the e-mail about starting this food blog. So I had to play catchup. I threw the peas in with the bacon and turned the heat off while I chopped the mint. OH! The smell of fresh mint was like heaven. It made me forget my fears of the roof caving in under the weight of the snow for just a minute. Luckily I had put the pasta on the stove.

Once the mint was chopped and I added it to the peas and bacon, along with the cream. The sauce looked a little weird - a little separated. But I was mixing cream with the drippings from ten slices of bacon. I shrugged it off.

Then I realized that I hadn't grated the parmesan cheese. I started to grate using my box grater, but my hands cramped. So I pulled out the mini-prep. I've never used it to grate cheese, but the combination chop/grind functions worked rather well. And saved my hands.

So I added the pasta to the bacon, peas, mint, and cream. And stirred it. Then I added the parmesan cheese and stirred some more.

Now I am a firm believer that one cannot have pasta without bread. So I sliced some bread and served it up. The verdict from Mr. D? "Delicious dinner, thank you."

I asked Mr. D to proof this before I posted it and he asked why I made such unhealthy food. TEN slices of BACON. God I love bacon.