Fettucine Alfredo with Bacon and Asparagus

The other night I made fettucine alfredo with asparagus and bacon for Shane and me. I was pretty impressed with the outcome and would absoutely recommend this simple dish to anyone who's in the mood for a little comfort and a lot of great flavor. 

The recipe was easy enough, which is great for me, seeing as I'm not the most confident cook ;)

Ingredients:

2 cups heavy cream

4 tablespoons butter

Fettucine

Bacon (as much as you want! we did 8 slices)

Asparagus (trimmed and cut into 1" pieces)

2 cloves of garlic, minced

A dash of ground nutmeg

Italian parsley

Parmesan

Seasonings (I used pepper, salt, and crushed red peppers)

Boil water for pasta, meanwhile boiling water in a separate pot to blanche asparagus. While the water is boiling, start cooking the bacon. Once the bacon is cooked, remove from skillet and place on a plate, covering with a paper towel to soak up grease. When the bacon is cool, start to crumble it into small pieces. Check on boiling water, begin cooking pasta and place asparagus into water.

Helpful hint for cooking asparagus: remove one asparagus from the rubberbanded bundle and see where it snaps if you bend it. Place it back in the bundle and cut all asparagus to the same length as the snapped asparagus. Keep the asparagus in the rubberbands and gently, evenly lower the bundle into boiling water to ensure you do not disrupt the temperature of the water. Once the water starts looking green (about 5 minutes, usually), carefully remove the aspargus with tongs and put it in a cold ice chip bath in your sink (I actually just douse it with really cold water, and it does the trick). Place on a plate to cool.

Begin cooking sauce while pasta is still cooking. Start by melting butter int a dutch oven over medium heat and saute garlic for about 30 seconds. Now stir in the heavy cream. Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg, bringing the sauce to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for about 5 minutes.  Stir parmesan cheese into the sauce until it is melted and sauce is thick. Turn off heat.

Drain pasta and add to sauce. Add bacon, asparagus, and parsley.

We added a little parmesan after, as well as crushed red peppers to give it a little kick. The result was really delicious!

It's not a paleo meal in the least, but it is really delicious for one of those cheat days, Katie!! Every day's a cheat day for me. I lasted about one day on the paleo diet... Proud of Katie for her commitment though!

-Diana