Rotini With Pancetta, Onions, and Mushrooms

By seanachi

I love, adore, cannot get enough of pancetta. I see it on the Food Network all the time, but it's hard to find in my tiny town. So when I do, I buy it with the intention of doing something wonderful with it. Well, I found it a while ago, got busy, threw it in the freezer--and forgot about it. I unearthed it for tonight's pasta, as I'm on my own and can indulge in my love of onions. I originally wanted to do this with zucchini as well, but my zucchis were well past their date of expiration, so we went with a limited veggie list.

Ingredients

• 3 * 3 oz. pancetta, diced
• 2 * 2 cups dry pasta
• 1 * 1 onion, diced
• 2 * 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 * 1 cup of baby bella mushrooms
• * salt and pepper to taste
• 1 * 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 * 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Details

Adapted from potsandplots.wordpress.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. Put your pasta on to boil in salted water.
2. Meanwhile, place pancetta and diced onion in skillet over medium heat. The pancetta will render plenty of fat to cook the onion in, and cooking it over a lower heat allows the flavor to sweat out.
3. When pancetta is starting to brown and onions are translucent (approximately 7 minutes), add garlic and mushrooms.
4. Sautee for approximately 3 minutes.
5. Drain and rinse your pasta.
6. Toss pasta with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
7. Add pancetta mixture and parmesan and toss well.

The verdict: This was delicious, though I still wished I'd had some zucchini and crushed red pepper flakes (we're out) for a bit of a kick. The hard part was not going back for seconds!

Nutritional info on this dish (serves 2 btw) worked out to 669 calories and 25 grams of fat.