Shoe-making Molly-Style

Buccatini w/ Bacon and Tomato Sauce.

Once again, I began this process with the desire to improve, to be a better, more patient cook. I came off the rails real fast on this one, reminding me that old habits die hard. I blame Nick because he wasn’t here to tell me to quit shoe-making.

I found a recipe that sounded good by Lidia Bastianich, I bought the ingredients listed, except the grocery store didn’t have buccatini so I used rigatoni. I didn’t really read the recipe until I was ready to start cooking. (mistake #1)

That’s when I discovered it included cooking the onions in water, which sounded weird to me. So I decided to deviate (classic Molly) and cook them in olive oil the way I always do.

Then I read that she had the bacon cooked on one side of skillet while the onions stayed on the other side. When I looked at the pan I had picked out, I thought “who is she kidding?” I’m not cooking on a restaurant flat top, I don’t have room for that. So I just added the chopped bacon while the onions were cooking (mistake #2)

The water that came out of the onions while cooking prevented the bacon from fully cooking, which I didn’t really realize until I tasted the sauce after I had added the fancy tomatoes. It simply wasn’t bacony enough. So I decided to try and add more bacon flavor by separately cooking some bacon, chopping it and adding it in.

But I didn’t want to dirty another pan so I microwaved the bacon (Shhhh! Don’t tell Nick!) Needless to say that was mistake #3. The bacon was fully cooked and crisped, but I lost all that good bacon grease in the process.

In the end, the pasta tasted pretty good, but I know how I’m going to do it better next time. (Cook the onions and bacon in separate pans and combine them once they are both done and use lots and lots of bacon!)

Lesson learned. (Hopefully)