Ladies and Gentlemen, He Didn't Die!

There comes a moment in every (pseudo) chef's career where he or she must cook for a person that is not a relative.  Someone who doesn't feel that obligation to smile and choke down that piece of food while at the same time exclaiming, "Wow, this is....*cough*....great....really, just...um....hits the spot?"  Tonight was that night for me.  The night where someone other than my mother or father ate my attempt at cooking and, dare I say, actually enjoyed it!  Somewhere the angels are rejoicing that they didn't completely mess up with yours truly.

I again defaulted to Paula Deen because I figure she's a safe bet--no one wouldn't like something coming out of her kitchen.  Well, they might not like it after years of eating that style wherein they're rushed to the hospital because all of their arteries are blocked and their cholesterol is off the charts but you catch my drift.

I also have a confession to make.  Remember when I said that I was giving up pasta?  Yeah, I didn't really "remember" that until right now when I was typing because that's exactly what I made.  But it gets better...I made Smoky Tomato-Bacon Pasta.  Pasta AND bacon--the tomatoes were an added bonus and my attempt at making it semi healthy.

In actuality, I wasn't quite sure what to make tonight, given that this was my quasi professional debut and on top of that, the entire cooking process would be on display from start to finish.  Do I make something exotic and out there but has the potential to be awesome or stick with something that I know will be easy under peer pressure.  Not only does the food have to taste good, the preparation has to look flawless, effortless, like "oh this? I just whipped this up off the top of my head.  I do this in my sleep."  Okay that part didn't happen since I clearly had the cookbook out right in front of me the entire time.  P.S. Bacon grease spatter travels a good distance so you might want to make sure you have items pushed far, far away from the pan but there's also something a little comic about this page being practically covered in bacon grease spatter.

I started with cooking about 10 slices of bacon until it was crispy and brown and trust me, I could have ended the recipe right then and exclaimed "Dinner's ready!"

As those were drying up, I chopped up one onion and cooked it until softened in the bacon grease--good one, Paula, good one.  At this point, my dog was going crazy, partially since there was a guest and partially because the aroma of bacon filled the entire kitchen...and living room...and hallway...and laundry room.

After about 5 minutes, I added some diced tomatoes with juice (I used a can...so sue me already) and crumbled the bacon to mix this yummy goodness together, seasoning it with some salt "for taste".  I've yet to determine what that means (give me a concrete measurement!  I'm not advanced yet!) because if it were up to me, I'd have a salt lick at my desk.  I like it that much. 

While that simmered for about 10 minutes, I started up the boiling pot of water in order to add my rigatoni (used an entire box but damn I'm going to have some good leftovers).  This is the part where I felt very chef-like since I had multiple things going at once--but then again not really since both were kind of "hands off and just wait" at this point.

The last step while the pasta was cooking was to add 4 ounces of cream cheese to the sauce which didn't make sense to me at the time but I'm sure it added a whole big great deal to it, which my taste buds might not be savvy enough to pick up on.

The end result was pretty darn good if I do say so myself and given that my guest of the night seemed to enjoy it as well (or was a good liar but I promise you, second helpings were had).  I can tell you this much--I know what I'm having for lunch tomorrow.

Boo-ya.