Over the last few months I have really enjoyed having Heather's Dish in my blog reading rotation. Heather has a black lab just like me and sports guy, the first thing on her "about me" dislikes is laundry and that would be my #1 in life dislike, and she is just a great writer. I don't know Heather (and now she probably thinks I am a crazy stalker, sorry I'm not, I just really like your blog) but I sort of feel like I do and I am so glad she shared this linguine recipe with me and the rest of the food blog world!
I have had this linguine with balsamic tomatoes, bacon and manchego "pinned" on my pinterest board since January, and unfortunately I just got around to making it last night. Believe me, I will make it again! I followed Heather's instructions except for one small thing it was incredibly simple and incredibly tasty. Basically you roast tomatoes in balsamic and puree them, fry some bacon and onions and then mix those things with pasta and cheese in a bowl and you are done! The one change I made, which I make to almost all recipes: I halved the amount of pasta called for and substituted 2 cups of fresh spinach. I roughly chopped the spinach and threw it in the bowl with the pasta right as it was coming out of the hot water. The pasta is hot enough to wilt the spinach just enough and when covered with pasta sauce the spinach blends right in with the rest of the dish, more color, more flavor, more vitamins and minerals. I have found this to be a great way to "bulk up" pasta dishes and make them more healthy.
Believe it or not this was my first time eating manchego cheese...It was quite expensive, but worth it. I loved the buttery softness of the cheese and it gave the dish something extra...I'm not quite sure what it was, but I liked it. I love all cheeses so its not like I was scared of not liking it, I just didn't know what to expect. Do you like Manchego? How have you used it? I still have half of the block left and I'm looking for ideas!
Sincerely Loving Food,
Lainey
sounds sooo good! and good tip about the spinach. i LOVE pasta and eat it so often with running. i feel guilty eating it on “non running days”. this would make me feel less guilty… :):) go to myrecipes.com and search by ingredients for the manchego…i can’t remember if i have used it before or not. if so-it would’ve been with a cooking light recipe and must’ve been a while ago if i did.
ReplyDeleteThis is my FAVORITE use of manchego http://www.grilledcheesesocial.com/2011/07/marco-polo.html SO delicious. You can thank me later ;-)
ReplyDeletePS I think we added some red bell peppers too :)
What else is in your blog reading rotation? Just curious...I'm always looking for new things to read.
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