This came from a Paula Deen cookbook my stepson and his wife gave me for Christmas. It is creamy and good and easy–hard combination to beat! I’ve been watching the Lidia Italian cooking shows on our PBS station and she almost always adds a bit of pasta water to a sauce, saying the starch in the water helps thicken the sauce I think. I did that here. The other thing I see her do is to not drain the pasta in a colander but instead lift the pasta out and add it to the sauce in the pan, which I also did here.
This comes together easily. You just cook the bacon and remove it (and drain off some of the grease), cook some diced onion, then add a can of tomatoes and the bacon and simmer for a bit while you cook the pasta. Stir in the cream cheese and then the pasta. That’s it. If you wanted to be more Italian you could use pancetta of course, instead of bacon.
Bacon and Tomato Pasta
Ingredients
- 4 slices of bacon
- 1/2 cup diced onion about half an onion
- 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes don’t drain them!
- about 2 ounces of cream cheese two slices off the 8 oz package
- 1/2 pound of pasta
Instructions
- Start a big pot of salted water to boil for the pasta.
- Cook the bacon until crisp and then lay on paper towels to dry.
- Pour off most of the bacon grease but leave a spoonful or so to cook the onions in. Cook the onions about 5 minutes, until soft, then pour in the can of tomatoes, juice and all.
- Crumble the bacon into the tomatoes and onions and stir together. Cook at a simmer, uncovered, about 10 minutes. If it gets too dry, add a spoonful of the pasta water. Stir in the cream cheese until melted.
- Start cooking the pasta so it’s done about the time the sauce is done. Cook until just al dente. Lift the pasta out with a slotted spoon or Spider Strainer and put it in your skillet with the sauce to finish cooking. Stir it all together and serve.
A spider strainer is great for lifting out the pasta.
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