What I Cooked: Fettuccine alla Marinara & Bacon!

Date of kitchen adventure: August 22, 2010

First off, the belly bacon and the diced tomatoes in can made a huge difference to my recipe. I owe it to my endless browsing of food blogs. When I went to the supermarket to complete the ingredients, I was damn serious of how to make my pasta dish tastes like real Italian - meaning, very tomatoey and not sweet at all - and a bit vegan as well.

Chopping off onions, bell peppers, carrots and belly bacon

I've learned that having a very sharp knife is a big help in the kitchen.

 

Diced tomatoes, mushrooms and spaghetti sauce (beef & mushroom and tomato & cheese variants)

Mind you, it's quite a big leap on my part to use the gourmet variants of Del Monte spaghetti sauce. Before, I always stick to the sweet or Pinoy style sauces which are child-friendly and very Jollibee.

I used San Remo fettucine noodles. Needless to say, make sure that the pasta is cooked al dente.

There's fire on the stove so let's cook.

Sweat off 500 grams of belly bacon in extra virgin olive oil. Hurray to healthy living!

After removing some bacon oil, I dumped the onions, carrots and bell peppers. The mushrooms were also added after a few minutes.

Lovin' marinara

I poured the spaghetti sauce and the diced tomatoes to the bacon-veggie mix. Nice tomatoey smell at this point. Too bad I wasn't able to add some herbs to complete my version of marinara sauce. I added a bit of salt and fresh ground pepper to balance everything. I also added McCormick's minced garlic for some flavor kick. The result: very, very tasty and could compete Sbarro's style! Love your own, you know! LOL!

Sprinkle cheddar cheese. Serve at once. Perfect with ice-cold Coke. More perfect when shared with loved ones and, of course, Coke! :)