Simple Fresh Tomato Sauce and Pasta with Bacon

Finally, tomatoes to cook with!

When you consider that I start the seeds in February or March, you have to admit that it shows great patience to wait and wait and wait for enough ripe tomatoes from the garden that there are some to cook with...in the second week of September! Only a half year of work, weeding, watering and anticipation. Soooo worth it. Since I haven't had my yearly BLT sandwich yet I decided to add some bacon to this dish. Yum!

The dish that I made is a simple pasta dish. The pasta is a simple linguine from the store, cooked al dente. The sauce starts with a few slices of bacon crisped in a frying pan. After removing the bacon use the bacon grease and saute some onions and garlic in the same pan. After 4 minutes, the pan gets covered, the heat gets turned down and the peeling of tomatoes commences. If you are a smart cookie you can prepare the fresh tomatoes long before dinner time, but I worked today so it all happened at the same time. I was twirling around the kitchen like a ballerina in order to keep everything going: Water to boil for the pasta..... stir the onion mixture..... dunk a couple of tomatoes in boiling water to loosen the skins..... get out the bowls for the salad..... stir the onion mixture..... peel the tomatoes and chop..... check to see if the water is boiling..... chop the parsley and basil while a couple more tomatoes get heated up..... peel the tomatoes..... grate the Parmesan.....oops make sure the onions aren't burning, and so on. It's one of the reasons I don't share my kitchen too well.

Eventually we had a lovely fresh pasta sauce with fresh onion, garlic, Italian parsley and basil AND bacon... served over the linguine, topped with grated Parmesan. There was also a little leftover pork roast and some yummy green salad that Sweetie made. A satisfying and fairly simple dinner here at Elle and Sweetie's. Hope you had a nice Friday night meal, too.

My recipe is a good one, but if you want to see an amazing pasta recipe, with plenty of fresh, beautiful garlic, go on over to Louise's blog Satisfied for pasta dressed with fresh basil infused olive oil and some fried garlic and red peppers, twirled into nests and topped with a fried egg. The pasta? It's made from semolina flour and a flour made from grape skins! It is beautiful to look at and sounds very tasty. Thanks to Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies for the heads up on that post.

Finally Tomatoes Pasta with Bacon
serves two generously

for pasta: 1/2 lb of your favorite pasta, cooked according to package directions...al dente please

for sauce:

2 slices bacon, cut in 1 inch pieces
1 large onion, peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic (or more!) peeled and minced
5-6 large ripe tomatoes (about 2 cups once peeled and diced), peeled and diced, juices saved
salt and pepper to taste
2-3 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
2-3 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary, broken
1/2 to 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

In a skillet cook the bacon until crisp. If you cook it over low heat toward the end it will render more of the fat, which is good. Remove the bacon to a paper towel to drain.

In the same skillet saute' the onion and garlic for 4 minutes, stirring a few times. Reduce the heat, cover and continue cooking for 5 more minutes.

While the onion mixture is cooking, fill a pot with water and heat it to cook the pasta.

Heat 2 cups water in a 4 cup heatproof measuring cup or narrow bowl with high sides. Add a couple of tomatoes and let sit 1-2 minutes to loosen the skins. Remove from the water and peel. Continue until all tomatoes are peeled.

If you don't like seeds in your pasta sauce, cut the tomato along the hemisphere and remove the seeds. Otherwise, just dice the tomatoes and reserve the juices, seeds and all. Empty the tomatoes from the cutting surface into the onion mixture in the skillet. Stir to combine. Add the salt and pepper, basil, Italian parsley, oregano and rosemary. Stir to combine. Cook over medium high heat, stirring often, to evaporate some of the liquid until sauce is the consistency you like for pasta.

If they have cooled, reheat the bacon pieces in the microwave.

Drain the pasta and plate it. Spoon the sauce on top. Sprinkle the bacon on top. Pass grated Parmesan at the table. Serve at once.