Penne with Goat Cheese, Asparagus and Bacon

There is a pasta dish that has recently become a  favorite in my family that features only 4 ingredients: olive oil, garlic, goat cheese and asparagus. The sharpness of the goat cheese and crisp sauteed garlic add enough interest that no other ingredients are needed.  Despite that fact, I can't help but add something. And lately, the thing I want to add (to almost any dish, I was planning to add some to the cornbread I was going to serve with my Sweet potato and black bean chili were it not for the fact that 2 of the guests who I made that meal for are vegetarian...) is BACON. Yes, crispy, salty, fatty bacon. What could be better? And what was I thinking for all those years that I refused to eat bacon?



This dish could easily be made with left over already cooked asparagus and/or bacon, you can add these ingredients in to heat and get a little crisper towards the end of the cook time for the shallots and garlic.

Penne with Goat cheese, Asparagus and Bacon
Serves 4 as a side, or 2 as a meal
Prep time: approx. 15min including pasta cook time
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups whole wheat Penne pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil divided
2 shallots
3 tablespoons soft goat cheese
3 cloves of garlic
10 stalks of asparagus, roasted
6 pieces uncured bacon
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

This dish requires some multitasking- all of the ingredients need about 10-15 minutes to cook, so it is important to start them all near the same time. The asparagus can be roasted in the oven at 350 with a little olive oil, while the water for the pasta should be turned on at the same time the asparagus is put in to roast and the shallots are chopped and sauteed.

 Chop the shallot and start to heat in a small pan with 1 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat
after the shallots appear translucent, add the garlic, chopped finely to the pan. cover and continue to cook on low heat.

In a separate pan cook the bacon over medium high heat, turning regularly until crispy.When it is done, remove from the pan on to a paper towel covered plate. then roll the paper towel around the bacon to create a bacon cocoon, and then crush with a large object or the palms of your hands. About a tablespoon of the bacon fat can be added to the pan with the shallots and garlic if you are willing- this will make the dish incredibly good- though also incredibly high in fat. If you need to justify this, remember that you are using WHOLE WHEAT PASTA, which means this is practically health food. Yes, works for me.

When the asparagus is done, chop the stalks into 1 inch pieces and mix with the shallots and garlic. add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil to the pan. Add to the pasta in a large bowl and mix together the ingredients, adding the goat cheese and crumbled bacon at this time. Add salt and pepper to taste, and an extra drizzle of olive oil if it makes you happy (it makes me happy- just saying...).

Danielle's $2 tuna

First off, I like this dish because I like alliteration. Two-dollar tuna. It's those t's that get me. I have spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to think of a perfect 3rd t-word to stick in there. Unfortunately the only t-words that come to me are entirely unrelated to this dish. Oh well, I am sure one will strike me next week, and I may go as far as to edit this post to stick that final t-word in its place...

The other night while I was busying myself with cauliflower and such, my roommate Danielle was also cooking in our kitchen, making a large batch of a tuna pasta salad of her invention to be eaten for a handful of lunches or dinners. After agreeing to be featured in a blog post,Danielle made not a single complaint as I buzzed around her taking pictures. When I said "wait, stop chopping, your hand looks blurry...just pretend to chop for a bit!" she did so without so much as an annoyed glance in my direction. Now there is a good sport, right? Well, she even agreed to photograph my process as I went on to cook dinner myself (the photographs of this entry should be credited to her), and above all of that, she allowed me to share the bottle of wine she had bought. Excellent. After all of this, she certainly deserves a glowing endorsement.


Danielle explained to me that this dish does not quite have a recipe, she doesn't measure the amounts particularly, and may change what goes in it a bit each time. I watched what she did put in and estimated for the most part. the trick is to adjust to your tastes, and just keep adding until it is perfect. I think dishes like that are always fun, ever changing, you may discover something amazing by accident when you throw in a pinch of this or a dash of that.  All in all this is a dish that is all about figuring out what you have sitting around in the pantry and using it, similar to my father's wonderful (though unpredictable) refrigerator meatloaf. According to Danielle, $2 tuna "began with experimentation and I'm still discovering new things to do with it." Likewise, if you choose to make this dish, take a chance, got an ingredient you don't know what to do with? Why not throw it in here!

As a side note, she also includes uncooked garlic in this, which is certainly an acquired taste, I suggest cooking up the garlic in olive oil ahead of time for a milder, sweeter garlic flavor.

Also, a note to those who live in fear of mayo: yes, the gelatinous white condiment can be intimidating, I found it wholly unoffensive in this dish, in fact, one could say it really "tied the room together".

Ingredients:

1/2 package pasta of your choice- I suggest whole wheat varieties, Danielle mentioned she likes to use Capellini when available. this time it was whole wheat spaghettini.
1 can tuna
1 can garbanzo beans
1 bunch green onions
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2-3 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons chilli powder
Salt and pepper to taste
whatever your heart desires, or is about to go bad if you don't use up


Follow package instructions to cook pasta, once it is cooked, drain and rinse with cold water. drizzle with olive oil and stir to coat
Chop green onions, rinse the garbanzo beans
Add green onions, chilli powder, salt and pepper, garlic, garbanzo beans, mayo and tuna to the bowl. mix until distributed evenly.

Yep, that's it.

This super easy dish can be served cold or room temperature. If you use low fat or fat free mayo, it is even pretty healthy, packed with healthy protein and whole wheat, cheap (less than $2 per serving, hence the name) and pretty tasty, too!

A final note from Danielle: "to address the issue of bringing a cold dish to work in the summertime, I plan on putting some in a sandwich bag, and then putting that in a bigger sandwich bag full of frozen grapes or whatever. That way I won't have warm mayonnaise surprise. hopefully." Awesome.