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Perfect pig pasta

Porky pasta

Yesterday I was reading through the blogs I subscribe to and I came upon Stephanie’s blog, Dispensing Happiness. She made a delicious looking penne with prosciutto and parmesan. I was already hungry since all I’d had for lunch was a scone, a cup of coffee, and some chocolate gelato (ah… the healthy diet of carbs and caffeine). To make matters worse I’d just started reading Peter Kaminsky’s book Pig Perfect. This is not the book to read if you are a crazy porkaholic, which I certifiably am. So when I saw Stephanie’s penne with prosciutto I said…hmmm, I should do something like that.

I had a half pound of lovely, porky, Willow Creek Farm bacon in the refrigerator as well as parmesan, and parsley. The garlic and a delicata squash from the pantry seemed the natural addition so I split the squash, tossed the seeds and put the squash in the oven to roast for about 20 minutes. Then as it cooked I chopped garlic, parsley, and diced bacon. When I pulled the squash out of the oven I was able to remove the shell and cut the squash into cubes.

About 20 minutes before I expected my lovely genius husband to walk in the door for dinner I put the water for the penne on to boil. Once it was rolling and the penne was cooking I added the bacon to a skillet heated up on medium. It took about 8 minutes for the bacon to cook on a medium low heat and then I removed the bacon, removed the pan from the heat, added a dash of olive oil and tossed the garlic into the skillet. Once the pasta was done I scooped servings out of the pasta pot and into a metal bowl. For Dexter and Alex I added bacon, garlic, and parmesan. Genius husband and I had the full monty of bacon, garlic, parsley, delcata squash, and parmesan. It was delicious!!!

Now I will confess, while in the thrall of the chapter about Ham I ordered a ham from Willow Creek. I predict a lot of pork while I read this book…and that’s a good thing!

December 14, 2006 | Filed Under beef, fish, poultry, pork, food, pasta, pizza, noodles 

comments

4 Responses to “Perfect pig pasta”

  1. peter kaminsky on December 14th, 2006

    hey vanessa,

    thanks for the plug. do you have an email for willow creek? did you ever have a door county fish boil?

    peace,

    peter

  2. vanessa on December 14th, 2006

    Hey Peter, thanks for stopping by. I sent you a email with Tony and Sue’s contact info. I love your book, not only the subject but your writing style as well. No we haven’t done the fish boil. We’ve been up to Door County a couple of times but haven’t done that yet..we plan to some day.

  3. Scott at Realepicurean on December 15th, 2006

    This does sound fab. I always love squash used in new ways.

  4. Ros on December 23rd, 2006

    Now you’ve got me craving pig! There’s a shop here that does some lovely chunky pieces of pancetta that would work with that dish so well.

    Actually I do a really similar dish with feta cheese and butternut squash (I don’t know if we get delcata around here). Definitely good stuff! :)

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