Creamy mushroom and bacon pasta

The Boy saw a friend of his post this recipe and asked for it. He said it looked good and wanted me to make it for us. Guess what? It is good.

Fettuccine Boscaiola ... or in this case, spiral pasta

My beloved Boy is cooking dinner tonight. He has decided that he wants to cook more and become more proficient in the kitchen, so I'm happy for him to take over cooking and meal duties now and then.

The Boy has been talking about being in the mood for a tomato based pasta dish for days, most of this week, actually, but at the last minute decided on a creamy sauce pasta instead.  He said he wanted something with ham so I thought Boscaiola, which yes, I know is made with bacon, but still .... who can complain about bacon, right?

I went onto the interwebs in search of a recipe and came up with this which sounded tasty and easy to make.

I gave it to The Boy to read over and he seems comfortable that he can tackle it without any help from me. Anyway, I'm kicking back while he is cooking, which, let me tell you, is very nice.

Here's the recipe for this particular Boscaiola, which we are making with spiral pasta instead of fettuccine, just because The Boy did not feel like fettuccine.

Ingredients:

• 400g dried curly fettuccine pasta
• 250g rindless bacon rashers, thinly sliced
• 40g butter
• 400g cup mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 5 shallots, ends trimmed, thinly sliced
• 425ml pouring cream
• 30g (1/3 cup) shredded parmesan
• 30g (1/3 cup) shredded romano
• Parmesan (optional), extra, to serve

Instructions:

• Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of salted boiling water until al dente. Drain.
• Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat, stirring often, for 4 minutes or until golden. Use a slotted spoon to transfer to a plate.
• Heat the butter in the frying pan. Add the mushroom and cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until tender and the liquid has reduced.
• Add the pale section of the shallot and stir to combine. Stir in the bacon and cream. Simmer for 6-7 minutes or until the mixture thickens slightly. Add the parmesan and romano, and stir until well combined.
• Add the pasta and green section of the shallot to the sauce. Season with salt and pepper and toss until well combined. Divide the pasta among serving dishes. Top with extra parmesan.

Since it was The Boy cooking, he tends to like to follow the recipe exactly when cooking for the first time ... well, most of the time really. I'm the one who improvises.

Anyway, he did follow the recipe almost exactly, but with the shallots, since we didn't have any fresh ones, just frozen ones, he just put them in towards the end to the mushrooms, bacon and cream and cooked it all together. There was no green section of the shallot to put in at the end. It all just went in with the sauce.

He also used spiral pasta rather than fettuccine. For some reason, he did not feel like fettuccine and decided on spiral pasta instead. The spiral pasta turned out great for the sauce to coat every little spiral on it.

The recipe doesn't say so, but salt and pepper to taste is important. With adding so much pasta to the sauce, it can taste a bit bland if there's not enough salt and pepper. You don't need a lot, but a pinch or two of both really helps.

The dish turned out to be very, very tasty. It made enough for 6 serves so we have plenty of leftovers for The Boy to take some to work over the coming days for lunch too.



© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA: Cooking blog: http://dazinthekitchen.blogspot.com.au/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dazinthekitchen Twitter: @langshipley https://twitter.com/langshipley Instagram: @langshipley http://instagram.com/langshipley Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/langshipley/ Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/langshipley Makeup and beauty blog: http://langshipley-deannasworld.blogspot.com.au/

Getting ready to cook tonight's dinner

All the ingredients one needs for a chicken and mushroom risotto, which is on the menu tonight.

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd

Some of the dishes from breakfast

So ... breakfast is done, or rather brunch. It was yummy! :-)

Those are the baked beans, buttered mushrooms and the tomato medley with onion and garlic.

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd

Swedish meatballs with creamy mushroom sauce and fettuccine

I'm not cooking tonight - we're just pulling some stuff out of the freezer and it just happens to be this dish which I made a few nights ago. I had posted on the first part of the cooking process which included the recipe for the meatballs, but I never posted on the rest of the meal.

I had so much leftover from the other night that I put some of it away in the freezer for another night. I didn't think we'd be pulling it out of the freezer so soon, but this is what The Boy wanted for dinner tonight. I had suggested leftovers (again!) but he protested to having chicken curry 3 nights in a row.

A friend of mine, whom I showed the picture of the dish to said it certainly looks a lot better than the meatballs you get from Ikea. Well, I would certainly hope so! I didn't use any fillers in the recipe.

So the previous post has the recipe for the meatballs, I'm going to post the RECIPE for the creamy mushroom sauce here:

Ingredients:

• 600ml cream
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 can sliced mushrooms, drained
• 1 packet dry mushroom soup mix
• 1 onion chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 bay leaves
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Heat olive oil in pan and put in onions and garlic to cook. Sautee for a few minutes but do not brown
• Add mushrooms into pan and cook until water is mostly gone
• Add white wine and bring to a simmer (this should happen fairly quickly)
• Add the packet of dry mushroom soup mix and stir in wine until mixed through
• Add bay leaves and cream and bring to a boil
• Simmer gently until sauce thickens (if the sauce becomes too think, you can add a bit more white wine to thin it out)
• When the sauce is ready, add salt and pepper to taste
• Serve over fettuccine and meatballs

Note: this is quite a rich, creamy sauce, so you don't need a lot. Too much sauce on your fettuccine might be too rich and be hard to digest or difficult to eat.

I served the meatballs and fettuccine with a side salad of green lettuce leaf mix. I dressed it with a simple balsamic dressing which was 3 tablespoons garlic infused olive oil and 2 tablespoons caramelized balsamic vinegar, shaken well together.

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd