blt spaghetti

OK so this post is basically "spaghetti with tomatoes and some other stuff part two." I hope that's alright. I know that everyone who cooks regularly has their usual fall back tricks in the kitchen, and I am anything but an exception. Yes, I will admit it: I am entirely too dependent on pasta and tomatoes and garlic and cheese and onions and cracked black pepper. I just can't help myself. Can you accept me as I am? Please? OK great, thanks.

So, without further ado, here's some blt pasta. I made this back before Labor Day. With Hurricane Irene bearing down on New York City, and with a previously unimaginable of subway closure about to take effect, I made a delicious picnic of baked polenta squares, a salad and this delicious spaghetti dish. Marianne picked up a couple of bottles of wine, and she, Alex and I had a very classy little picnic watching The Taming of the Shrew in Riverside Park, where there's free summer Shakespeare at the Sailor's Monument. As an aside, it's all too often confused with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier further uptown, as Alex and I discovered too late. But that's another story. This is a food blog, for goodness sake!




So there is the food! And here's the recipe!

I can tell you about it too, if you like. To be honest, I switched it up a little bit. The original calls for pancetta, but I used bacon. I always have bacon around, and pancetta, while delicious, is not so easy to find in Harlem, and is comparatively expensive. And also the recipe is called "BLT Bucatini" (not that I used bucatini) so I figured it would be ok. (If you are skeptical let me tell you a little secret: everything is better with bacon.)

The rest of the dish goes a little something like this: roast tomatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper and sliced garlic. Cook the bacon until crispy, and then toss the tomatoes in the pan. Boil up your spaghetti, and then toss it with the tomato, bacon garlic mixture, adding a little pasta water to loosen up the sauce. Then, toss in your arugula while the spaghetti is still hot, so it gets nice and wilty. All that's left to add is bit of grated cheese.

It's about as delicious as you are probably imagining. Really, really good. Also good: making other outdoor theater goers jealous with your undeniably superior picnic. Just one of the many things that BLT pasta is good for. Number one that list being "eating."




Don't you wish you could dig in?