Zuchinni Bacon Pasta Recipie

I made this tonight, because I had a bunch of random stuff I wanted to get rid of (the zucchini NEEDED to be cooked), so I just threw this together, and it turned out AWESOME, so I wanted to share.

Ok, first it’s important to note that I added a few extra things SIMPLY because I either had a little tiny bit left and threw it in (the cream cheese), or just thought it sounded good added in (the white sauce component, for example, I just made with the leftover bacon grease). If you take these out, the calories would be 264 for two US cups instead of 298 for two cups…. The entire recipe makes just about 16 cups, so there are 8 giant “servings” in this recipe.

Ingredients:
9 slices of bacon
5 medium sized zucchini (7-8 inches long)
14 oz of penne pasta (I used the Ronzoni Smart Taste pasta)
3 cups of Spaghetti Sauce (I used Hunt’s Garlic and Herb spaghetti sauce)
1 oz grated Parmesan cheese
*optional*
2 tablespoons of light cream cheese
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons of white flour

Steps:
Cut up zucchini into pieces about the same size/length as penne pasta.
Begin cooking pasta as directed. With about 6 minutes left, throw in the zucchini with the pasta to cook. I left it uncovered so it wouldn’t boil over, but you could cover it up if you watch it closely.
At the same time, cook the bacon pieces. I don’t like to cook them too crunch because then they just break apart in the sauce. So I keep them hardcore on the chewy side.
When the pasta and zucchini are done, drain them (duh).
*Optional* Using about 1/3 of the leftover bacon grease, I made a roux, by mixing in the flour into the bacon grease, until it cooked out the flour flavor, then turned off the heat and added my cup of milk and mixed. I’m not good at describing how to make this, it’s just like you’re making a white gravy, which some people have trouble with. The key is to keep stirring or whisking so you don’t get clumps. There’s youtube videos and stuff on it.
*back to your normal programming*
Back in my now empty pan, I added the spaghetti sauce to start warming up. This is when I mixed in my *optional cream cheese (seriously it was only because it was so little left I thought why bother) and the white gravy*. I also threw the bacon in then, as well as the parmesan cheese. Oh, and I put in some garlic salt and Italian seasoning.
Next I just dumped the pasta and zucchini back in, and done! Delicious!


As is:
Calories/Carbs/Fat/Sat Fat/Protein/Fiber
298 / 52 / 7 / 2 / 13 / 9

Without my optional ingredients:
Calories/Carbs/Fat/Sat Fat/Protein/Fiber
264 / 48 / 7 / 2 / 12 / 9