Homemade TV Dinners: Michelina's Lean Gourmet - Mama's Pasta & Bacon Bake

Costs a dollar. Convenient. Tasty. Somewhat healthy. Quick cooking.

Impressed? Don't be.

We can do better than that.

Set a pot of water to boil.

Preheat 3TBL extra virgin olive oil over medium heat in a pan

Dice 1/2 of an onion and 1 stalk of celery

Make matchsticks out of a small carrot

Add to the pan

Cook for 8 minutes.

Chop 1-2 cloves of garlic

Reserve

Your water is probably boiling at this point

Add a hefty pinch of salt

Add 1/2lb of a medium shelled pasta like Conchiglie (Ditalini, Orecchiette, Rotini, Macaroni, or Penne are all good candidates for a subsitution)

Cook til al dente

Shifting attention back to the sauce

Add the chopped garlic

3/4teas pepper

1/2teas salt
1/2teas oregano

1/2teas smoked paprika

1/4teas crushed red pepper flakes
Cook for 2 minutes

Deglaze with

1/4cup wine, stock, or water

Cook for 1-2 minutes

Add in

1cup of rinsed and drained, canned kidney beans

1/2cup frozen spinach
1/2cup jarred marinara sauce

1/4cup evaporated milk (I added the milk directly to my leftover jarred sauce & gave a shook)

Spoonful or 2 of the pasta-cooking liquid

Mix together 

the cooked & drained pasta with the sauce

Mix through

1/4cup grated parm



I only added this picture to spotlight my new fingernail polish.
I'm a girl like that.

Taste for seasonings

Cool

Store

Re-heat

Eat

Repeat

I purposely left out the bacon since there really was no point in adding the extra fat. Bacon's smokey flavor was in turn replaced with smoked paprika. A few dashes of liquid smoke would also be a sufficient replacement.

Beans mixed with pasta might come across as strange at first. If you get to know the two together a little bit more though, you'll come to find they work surprisingly well together.

TV Dinner or not, this is a great vegetarian recipe (remember to deglaze with vegetable stock if you go this route). Beans serve as a great source of protein. If you demand your meat or hate on vegetarian recipes (for whatever reason why), then include a pork product of your choosing. i.e. bacon, ham, pork loin, proscuitto, pancetta... or go crazy and add chicken.

I might breakdown come next week & buy a couple more TV dinners, or I might resist & learn to love my homemade versions. But that's for next week to decide. For the time being, I'll just stay a little perplexed as to why the name is "Mama's Pasta & Bacon Bake" when there really is no baking involved...