So, it’s been a really long time since I’ve posted! I have a good reason, I promise.
I’m pregnant!
Yep, hubby and I are expecting our first baby right at the beginning of the new year!
This means that pretty much since the beginning of May, I’ve been pretty uninterested in cooking. This is partly because I haven’t had much energy, particularly at the beginning when I would come home from work, lay down on the couch, and fall asleep to Friends reruns. But it’s also partly because I just haven’t been interested in food.
Let me clarify. I have been very, very interested in food like boxed mac and cheese and good old grilled cheese sandwiches made with American cheese singles and white bread. Really, anything that involved cheese. But nothing that required effort.
Poor hubby has endured lots of meals that are thrown together with a jar of spaghetti sauce, a bag of frozen meatballs, and a box of spaghetti.
In the past week or two (I’m well into my second trimester now), I’ve started to get back into cooking, but so far it’s been things I’ve made and blogged about before.
Until tonight! You are finally getting a new post about something I’ve made!
Of course, it was a meal based almost entirely on the fact that I haven’t been to the grocery store lately and didn’t have much to work with. Work with me.
I present: bacon parmesan pasta!
Start off with a chopped onion. I had less than I wanted, but the only other onion I had was pretty old and soft. So this was it. Sorry for the blurry pic.
Next, I pulled some bacon out of the freezer and thawed it. I’d purchased it when I only needed a few strips for a chicken salad, so the rest was up for grabs.
I tried to chop it up with a big knife, but that didn’t work out so well.
So I used my kitchen shears. This is why I’m always on hubby’s case not to use these as general household scissors….
Toss the bacon in a big pan and start frying it up.
After a little bit, I added the chopped onion and a teaspoon or two of minced garlic.
While it cooked up, I opened a can of artichokes and chopped them.
Back to the bacon, because I like to jump around a lot. I spontaneously added some pure maple syrup to the bacon/ onion/ garlic mixture.
Oh, did I mention I’ve been cooking pasta in another pot? No? Well, I have. Problem is, I assumed that two boxes of Wegman’s brand farfalle pasta would have the same cooking time and combined them, only realizing later that they have two different cooking times. Thanks, Wegman’s. So some of my farfalle was cooked better than other farfalle.
So after the pasta is cooked and drained, I added a bit of olive oil and tossed it until coated.
I didn’t want to drain the bacon and lose all the grease (potential flavoring), so I just used a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon and onions straight to the pasta.
Then I opened a can of diced tomatoes and added some.
Next, I added the artichokes.
Finally, seasonings. Some salt…
Some pepper…
Some Italian seasoning…
And some basil…
After I’d stirred it all up, I poured in a little of the bacon grease to give it flavor and body. Not all of it, just some.
Finally, some grated Parmesan cheese. This really should have been fresh, not the stuff in a green plastic can, but oh well. Like I said, this was made with stuff I had handy.
And since I wasn’t following my recipe too closely, I went back and tweaked ingredients after giving it a taste. I added more tomatoes, etc. Finally, it was ready to eat!
Yum!
Quite tasty. Satisfied the pregnant lady’s obsession with carbs, while also giving hubby plenty of bacon. I liked the sweetness of the maple syrup against the savoriness of everything else (that’s totally not a word, by the way). Not the healthiest thing ever, given how much of the bacon fat went into it, but I’m not counting calories right now and I haven’t gained too much weight to date so I can’t say I care too much. It was yummy and it’ll reheat well.
If you’re interested in the original, there it is. It was fairly basic (didn’t have the maple syrup, tomatoes, artichokes, or seasonings), but it’s a good place to start. It was kind of fun to make the dish my own for once, rather than following a recipe to the letter. Enjoy!
