BLT Pasta (NY Times)

 A friend gifted me with a bowl of cherry tomatoes and I'd also had a few cherry tomatoes from my deer and bug eaten plats, so I thought it was a good time to make this BLT Pasta recipe from the NYT.  I used rigatoni instead of the "paccheri" pasta called for. Recipe said you couldl also substitute penne, but I don't think it would catch the chunks in the sauce as well.  This version is also halved to feed 2. :-)

BLT Pasta (Adapted from the NYT)

Ingredients:

• 6 oz rigatoni pasta (update: also works fine with penne! 😀)
• 4 ounces bacon, diced into ½-inch pieces (I used Nueske's applewood smoked bacon from the Fresh Market)
  
• 8 oz cherry tomatoes, halved, plus a few more
  
• Diamond Crystal kosher salt  and black pepper
• 2.5 ounces baby arugula (or more!) update 4/6/26 also have used frisee (5oz) or escarole (5oz).
• 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano, plus more for serving (I used Parmigiano Reggiano)
  
• Flaky salt, for serving (optional)

Intructions:

1. Cook pasta in salted water until about 1 minute from being completely done.  Drain and reserving 1 cup pasta water.
2. You can start the sauce while the pasta's cooking. In a 5-qt dutch oven or large skillet,  place the bacon cook over medium-low heat until crisp, stirring occasionally to make sure it does not burn, about 8 minutes (sometimes I'll start it with 1/2 cup of water, that allows some of the fat to render and then the bacon can crisp in that fat after the water evaporates). Remove bacon  with a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate lined with paper towels. If there's a lot of fat, you may want to remove all but 1 tbs or so.
   
3. Turn heat to medium and add the tomatoes to the skillet, tossing them to coat in the bacon fat. Season with salt and pepper. As the moisture from the tomatoes releases, scrape any browned bits that have accumulated at the bottom of the pan (add a few tablespoons of the pasta water if you need to) and continue to cook until the tomatoes begin to fall apart, about 5 to 7 minutes more. Add half of the cooked bacon back to the skillet and toss to combine.
4. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the cooked pasta directly to the skillet tossing to coat with the sauce. Add the arugula and and a couple tablespoons of the pasta water, and carefully toss (Here's where the NYT warns "you'll have a very full pan" and why I like to use a dutch oven rather than a skillet for these types of recipes!) until the arugula wilts. 
5. Add the cheese and another 2 tbs pasta water, and toss together until the cheese emulsifies and the pasta is glossy with sauce. If needed, add another 2 tbs  cup pasta water to loosen the sauce. 

 

Some pics:

 

Pretty cherry tomatoes - some sungolds from my plants, and mostly I think Black Cherry tomatoes from my friend:

Cut in half:

 

Finished dish:

 

Homemade Bacon (who knew?)

My friend Marlene emailed me a couple of weeks ago w/ a link to this NY Times article (along with several others) asking "...want to try homemade bacon?"   I had several pork bellies in the freezer because of Marlene (she thought they were ribs from Ofuskee Farm, but they were bellies) and she also had pork bellies from PTB Farms (who I've mentioned before).  We each made up our own cure, riffing off of the NY Times recipe (I left out the coriander, thyme and fennel because they didn't seem like very "baconlike" ingredients to me) and several others from around the web.  Here's what I used:

Cure:

• 2.5 Tbs kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
• 1/2 tsp pink salt (note: this is not himalayan pink salt!  It's pink salt w/ sodium nitrite for curing meats!)
• 2 Tbs maple syrup
• 2 Tbs honey
• 2 Tbs cold black coffee
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed (CSA ingredient, so it's legit to have bacon on the blog)
• 1 Tbs black peppercorns, crushed (put them in a ziploc and hit 'em w/ a meat mallet a few times)
• 2-2.5 lbs pork belly (I had 3 tiny bellies, ranging in size about 10-12 oz) 

 Instructions:

1. Place the pork bellies in a Ziploc bag.
2. Mix together the dry cure ingredients, add to bag
3. Add wet cure ingredients, close the bag
4. Massage the bag to coat the bellies with the cure ingredients as best you can
5. Press most of the air out of the bag and place bag in fridge
6. Flip the bag over and massage the cure into the meat 1x day for 7 days
7. After 7 days, remove the bellies from the bag, and rinse the cure off of the meat.  Pat dry with paper towels, and place on a rack in the fridge to dry for 6-24 hours.
8. Since my bellies were so small, I rolled and tied them at this point
9. Smoke over applewood at 200-225°F for 1.5-2 hours until internal temperature is 150°F

Some before pics:
Ready to go into the smoker

Coming out of the smoker (we also had probe thermometers in two of the bellies while smoking so we knew when to pull them).

mmm...bacon

You could slice and eat it just like this, but we pan fried a few slices and then put some on parchment and stuck it in a 400°F oven to bake 8-12 minutes, keeping an eye on it and flipping it about every 3-5 minutes. 

Forgot to take an after pic.  Combined with Marlene's homemade sourdough sandwich bread, these gorgeous tomatoes from the CSA and some smoked corn mayonnaise from Deep Run Roots, it made some damn fine BLT's.  (which would also be damn fine w/ some Hellman's or Duke's and any good white sandwich bread).