Faux Pasta

One of the things I love in addition to design is cooking. This realization hit me years ago when I was watching an episode of Iron Chef America and listened to how the chef spoke about his food, how each plate correlated with the other, and how beautiful the plating was. There were similarities between cooking and design that I had never taken the time to realize.

And the most important reason for my fascination with cooking, eating good food is fun, and eating bad for you food is even better.

I would like to say that Faux Pasta is the culmination of my 5 years of college cooking experience, taking inspiration from recipes I love and mixing them all together to a meal that hits every one of my favorite taste buds.
Before I tell you how I made this, I would like to tell the story of how I fell upon it. My original plan was to make chicken alfredo with mushrooms and broccoli, but Craig unfortunately bought the wrong half and half and cream cheese and our sauce came out sweet and watery...and inedible. Instead of sending him back to the store to get the ingredients to remake the sauce I just took things around our kitchen and put this together...hence the name for this recipe, Faux Pasta.

The best part is that there are only a few key ingredients that you HAVE to have, but really you can throw in whatever veggies you want to make it.

Things you have to have:
5 slices of bacon
1 can of chicken stock
1/2 a sweet onion
Salt and Pepper to taste
any noodles you choose

Things I like to add:Chicken
Mushrooms
ZucchiniTomatoes
Broccoli
Parmesan Cheese

In one pan I fry toss in raw bacon already chopped. I cook that till its crispy because that's just the way I like it, but you can cook it however way you want. I take the bacon out and set aside once it is done and leave the grease in the pan. I then add my chopped sweet onion and mushrooms and saute.

This recipe is very amateur and I have a hard time saying what the best way to time everything is. At about the time I start sauteing I put a pot of water on the stove to boil for the noodles and I start putting my zucchini on the George Foreman to grill. When the mushrooms and onions are done you add the chicken stock and let that simmer.

Meanwhile I start cooking my chicken. When the noodles are about halfway done I cook my broccoli and then add my cooked zucchini to the mixture. And when the noodles are a few minutes away from being done I add the tomatoes, I don't want to add them too soon otherwise the heat will break them down too much.
This is what my basic sauce looks like before I add it to the noodles. I drain the noodles and dump them into a big bowl (I like this recipe so much I always make a lot of it for leftover purposes). Then I add the broccoli. Then I add the sauce. Then I add the bacon. Then I add the chicken after I have cut it up into bite size pieces. I like to mix it all together with a handful of shredded Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper. Depending on what veggies I'm cooking with, my cook timing is a little different.

You don't need to add any cheese or chicken to this recipe because its good enough without it and there is so much flavor. Its a real veggie lover delight I think. I've never tried cooking it without the bacon, but I love bacon and I will never take that out of it, unless one fateful night when I turn to my Faux Pasta rescue dinner and discover there is no bacon in the fridge.