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bacon

Chicken, Bacon, Spinach and Tomato Pasta Bake

May 17, 2019

You guys, it’s been a while since we had a casserole here on THO. But I have a friend who just had a baby girl (hi Meaghan!). When I thought about what meal I could bring her I was bored with every casserole I had made before.

Enter this Chicken BLT one.

I’ve been on a BLT kick ever since I ordered one at Panera a few weeks ago. So simple! So delicious! My daughter even asked me if I had bought a large package of bacon or something because I had been cooking with it a lot. Does bacon come in bulk? If so, sign me up.

We all loved this dinner, it’s comfort food and it freezes and travels well, so it makes a great dish to share. Like most casseroles there are a few steps, but you could bake it in the same pot as the pasta is cooked in and you stir it all together if you wanted to.

The thing that makes this SO delicious is I cooked the tomatoes and the spinach in the bacon grease so it would take on the bacon flavor. I got the idea from a pasta dish at the Mother’s Day brunch we went to, where I bit into a cherry tomato and was like, that tastes like bacon! Wait, it’s been cooked in bacon grease!  This had to be duplicated. And voila! It works perfectly here. I love when greens are cooked in flavor too.

I didn’t use bacon grease for the roux as I thought it would make the dish too heavy. Instead in the same pan as I cooked the diced chicken (to save time though you could use rotisserie or bake the chicken in the oven and then dice it) I made a roux with butter, onions and chicken stock and just a little cream and parm to make it delicious.

Then I poured it over the pasta to combine it. It’s important to let the sauce coat the pasta first and then add the tomatoes, spinach and bacon so you don’t burst the tomatoes or crumble the bacon too much.

Then you toss it all together and add this delicious parm and panko topping that really mimics the toast in a BLT.

Drizzle the top with a little olive oil so it turns brown in the oven (channeling my inner Giada here since she does this topping for every casserole she makes).

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until the panko turns golden, and then when you remove it, add another little crumble of bacon because why not?

True story, when I was taking these photos, I was getting my kindergartener ready to go to LaCrosse practice, and I took a few bites from this plate. It was so ridiculously good that the whole time we were at practice I was counting the minutes until we could go home and have this for dinner. (I finished reading My Brilliant Best Friend to keep my mind off of it thankfully).

Here’s to new babies, comfort food, and good books!  Happy Eating, xoxo Katie

Chicken, Bacon, Spinach and Tomato Pasta Bake

Ingredients:

1 pound penne pasta

1 pound of bacon

2 c. cherry tomatoes

4 c. packed fresh spinach

1 Tbsp. olive oil

3 chicken breasts, diced (or meat from 1 rotisserie chicken)

1 tsp. salt

¼ tsp. pepper

1 onion, diced

4 Tbsp. of butter (½ a stick)

¼ cup flour

2 cups chicken stock

¼ cup cream

½ + ⅓ cup freshly grated parmesean

⅓ cup panko

Directions:

Cook pasta in salted water according to package, drain, and return to pot, drizzling with a little oil so it doesn’t stick. While it cooks, fry bacon (may need two pans or to work in batches if pan is too small). Once it’s cooked, remove and place on paper towel lined plate. Pour off all but 2 T. of the bacon fat. Add tomatoes and spinach to remaining bacon fat and cook on medium heat, tossing in pan instead of stirring so you don’t break tomatoes. Cook for 3-4 minutes until spinach is wilted and tomatoes are slightly blistered, taking care not to overcook. In another large pan, heat olive oil on medium high heat, then add diced chicken, salt and pepper. (If using precooked or rotisserie chicken you can skip this step). Cook until chicken is nicely brown, then remove from pan on a plate and set aside. In the same pan, melt 4 Tbsp. butter, and then add diced onions. Cook until onions are soft, about 4-5 minutes. Then whisk in flour for 1 minute. Then add chicken stock and whisk well. Then whisk in cream and ½ cup parmesan and mix until its melted into sauce. Taste for seasoning, adding salt if needed. Pour this mixture over the pasta and stir to combine. Then add the cooked tomatoes, spinach and chicken. Seperate 3 strips of bacon, and cut up the rest and add to the pot. Gently combine all these ingredients so as not to break the tomatoes and then pour them into a 9 x 13 casserole dish. Combine panko and remaining ⅓ cup parmesan and sprinkle over the top, then drizzle with a little olive oil. Cook at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until panko is slightly browned. Remove and sprinkle with remaining 3 strips of bacon, cut up.

BLT Pasta

September 8, 2015

Don’t you love how kids negotiate?

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They are like master lawyers and politicians combined. They’re ready for the Supreme Court by the time they hit 2nd grade.

I firmly subscribe to the advice I got from my first pediatrician – your job is to put healthy food in front of them, their job is to eat it. Anything else is a power struggle. There are so many times I am inching towards a power struggle, and as soon as I start to notice it, I just remind myself of this idea. I do hold out that you have to eat your veggies to get a small (trying to get back to small after some epic bowls of ice cream this summer. Like I said master negotiators. With school in session I try for 1 small scoop or yogurt or sugar free pudding) dessert, so I guess technically that is a power struggle but its working and we all know not to mess with what’s working.

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The reason for this tangent is that my kids talk a lot about 50/50. They like foods that are half healthy, half yummy. And this dish was born out of that logic. Also, our mutual love of bacon.

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Spaghetti is loved by everyone in our house (oh, yours too?) and I use Dreamfields pasta (this is not sponsored, we just like it), so I normally feel pretty good about serving it because its like 50/50 pasta.

And kale is 100% healthy. Bacon is 0%, so combined they are 50/50.

Same with tomatoes (100%) with alfredo sauce from a jar (0%). But their 50/50 is a surprising vodka sauce-like taste.

I was really surprised by the outcome of this dish – it had a hint of the original inspiration of the BLT sandwich, and when I took a bite with some chewy french bread it came out even more. But it had a quality that was its own and tasted like, umm, what’s that fluffy place in the sky again? Oh that’s right, heaven. It really has everything to do with that onion creamy goodness in the sauce. And of course the bacon.

If you have more then a nanosecond to make dinner like I did the night I came up with this dish, you could make your own easy alfredo sauce like the Pioneer Woman. And feel free to mix up this dish with whatever version of B and L and T that you love or have in the fridge. Penne or bowtie pasta would be yummy. Good to have options. But I have to say we all loved how this combo played out. I really recommend the kale because the heartiness of it really gave some ‘meatiness’ to the dish since the bacon was thin. I always try to add garlic to kale because it absorbs the flavor so well, hence the garlic salt. You could use spinach too but I think it would be a lot lighter and might get lost. And of course cherry tomatoes work too.

The total time for this dish? 15-20 minutes. So save if for your total craziest day because you know that is when you’re gonna need comfort food the most.

xoxo Katie

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BLT Pasta (Printer version here) – 

Ingredients:

3 T. olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

1 head of kale, stems removed and chopped

1 teaspoon garlic salt

½ teaspoon pepper

2 large ripe tomatoes, squeeze to remove juices and seeds then diced

1 jar of alfredo sauce (if you are really fancy, make your own like this one by the Pioneer Woman)

1 package spaghetti (we love Dreamfields)

8 slices of bacon (turkey bacon if you want to be healthy!)

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400. Arrange bacon on a cookie sheet lined with foil. Cook for 12-15 minutes for chewy bacon, a few minutes more for crispy, starting to check at 12 minutes for doneness.

Boil spaghetti according to package. Meanwhile, warm up 2 T. of oil over medium high heat and add onions. Cook for 5 minutes. Then add garlic on top, cook for 1 more minute. Add kale, additional 1 T. of olive oil, and garlic salt and pepper. Cook for 5-7 minutes, until wilted. Add tomatos and cook for 2 minutes until warm. Then add alfredo sauce and stir until warm.

Drain spaghetti and combine with sauce. Add cooked bacon on top. Serve immediately with crusty bread.