Bacon and Tomato Pasta

I haven't cooked much lately. It's too hot. It seems wrong to crank up the A/C and the stove/oven at the same time. But I am getting hungry. And you can only eat so many peaches and cantelope before you need some real food.

My tomato plant is doing really well. I get a couple tomatoes off of it pretty much every day. I've had way too many caprese salads. I'm actually getting sick of them to the point where the tomatoes were just piling up. I needed to figure out something else.

I have recently gotten a copy of Pasta Sauces from the Williams Sonoma Kitchen Library. It's a good book to flip through for some ideas. It's got lots of pretty pictures though I think we all know I don't have the ability to follow a recipe. Anyway it's got a bacon and tomato puttanesca that was a good starting point for using up my tomatoes and having some real food.

Thank Kate for introducing me to PBS. That's where I got this and a number of my recent cook books. I swap paperbacks for cookbooks. And then never swap them back. I'm not sure how long this system will last. But I have a few new random cookbooks now.

Look, I actually got the pics off my camera! I've even gone back and added pics to a number of old posts that I didn't get around to.

It starts with bacon and onion cooked together in a skillet. As Ina would put it, 'how bad can that be?'
Then you add the tomatoes.
Followed by the pasta and a sprinkle of parsley. How much simpler can it be? I even used whole wheat pasta so it's healthy!
Try not to eat the whole batch at once.


Bacon and Tomato Pasta
Based on Tomatoes and Bacon Puttanesca, from Pasta Sauces from the Williams Sonoma Kitchen Library

1/4 lb bacon strips, cut into squares
1 onion, diced
3 ripe tomatoes, peeled and seeded, large dice
a pinch red pepper flakes
1/2 lb short cut pasta
a sprinkle of fresh parsley, finely chopped

Put bacon pieces and red pepper flake in a cold skillet and heat over medium low heat. When pan is warm and bacon starts to cook add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until bacon is crisp and onion is just starting to brown. Add the tomatoes. Cook so until it starts to thicken.

Meanwhile, boil pasta until slightly undercooked. Strain pasta and add to the skillet with the sauce. Stir to coat and cook for several minutes to finish cooking the pasta. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.