Creamy Bacon Portabella Linguine

Mmmm bacon, haven't cooked with bacon in a quite a while but it was on sale last week and I decided to pick up a few pounds along with some mushrooms since the two combine so well. I whipped this dish up pretty quickly as it doesn't have many ingredients and can be made in one frying pan, which is always a plus. This came out really well, I particularly like the way the nutty whole wheat pasta complements the richness of the bacon and sour cream in the sauce. Also, cooking something with bacon means you can steal a few pieces on the side before you add it into the main dish and who can resist that?

Happy noshing! 

Creamy Bacon Portabella Linguine

16 oz. Portabella Mushrooms sliced

1 lb. Bacon

2 tablespoons Flour

1 cup (approx) Milk

1/3 cup Sour Cream

Salt

Pepper

½ lb. Whole Wheat Linguine cooked according to the package directions

Crispy bacon - yum!

Fry bacon on medium high heat until slightly crispy. Drain almost all grease out of the pan but keep enough in to cook the mushrooms. While mushrooms are cooking grind pepper over them to taste. Once mushrooms are softened and browned sprinkle flour on them and mix to coat. Slowly add in the milk and sour cream to the pan (on low heat) and stir until thickened. Add in the bacon and the linguine and stir until coated. 

Linguine with Roasted Asparagus in a Tomato Lemon Sauce

I've been getting over a cold for the past few days and haven't felt like doing much, but I am finally starting to feel better so I will be cooking yummy things again! I made this dish last week though, the idea of roasting asparagus and then adding it to pasta popped into my head at work and I decided I had to try it since asparagus was conveniently on sale at Publix (also, I love asparagus and will use any excuse to eat more of it). Lemon sets off the flavor of the asparagus nicely, so I decided to use some fresh lemons in the sauce. This came out really excellent, but it is quite sour so if you don't enjoy sour food that much use less lemon. I forgot to take a picture of this before I ate all of it but it is really pretty and colorful.

Enjoy!

Linguine with Roasted Asparagus in a Tomato Lemon Sauce

½ lb. Whole Wheat Linguine (Ronzoni’s brand is the best I have tried so far)

2 lb. Asparagus

4 Fresh Tomatoes

1-2 Lemons zested and juiced (depends on how sour you like your food)
1 tablespoon Sugar

1 tablespoon Flour

1-2 teas. Lemon Pepper seasoning

Salt to taste

Fresh Ground Pepper to taste

Olive Oil

Asiago Cheese grated

Snap the base of the asparagus off and discard it (so that you only use the tender part), then snap again in half so that the pieces aren’t too big when in the pasta. Place the asparagus onto a large cookie sheet and toss with lemon pepper seasoning, pepper, salt, and olive oil. Roast at 425 for about 20 minutes or until tender (make sure it doesn’t get too soft, the asparagus should still hold its shape). Then roast the whole tomatoes with a little olive oil and salt and pepper for about 25 minutes at the same temperature until the skin of the tomatoes starts to crack and turn brown. Cool tomatoes slightly then remove skin and place the skinned tomatoes in a bowl and mash up slightly (so you don’t end up with huge tomato pieces in the pasta). Mix flour in with the lemon juice to form a paste and heat a large skillet to medium or medium low heat and place some of the tomato juice (from the bowl of roasted tomatoes) into the skillet with the lemon paste. (Meanwhile cook pasta according to package directions.) Cook until the flour begins to thicken the sauce then add in the rest of the tomatoes and cook until slightly thickened. Add in asparagus as well as the lemon peel and sugar and cook some more until the sauce is thick enough to coat pasta and then toss in the pasta. Serve with grated asiago cheese on top.