Bacon and mushroom linguine

So it was one of those weekend in which you feel like you have been force fed enough wine to float the Ark, and I was in need of some serious food to make up for the (gasp!) McDonald's we'd been eating most of the weekend!

{image source: be_khe, flickr}

So on Sunday when my dear friend came round to do my first wedding makeup trial, we were all a bit hungover, and desperately needed food before any makeup could be, well, made up. And so I went to work. I didn't know what I wanted, but I knew there had to be pig and it had to be warm. It was touch and go for while, we nearly had egg and bacon sandwiches, and then it was butter chicken. But in the end, pasta and its healing carbo-rificness won out. This was warm, creamy and delicious, and cured the hangover immediately. It had pig, how could it not?!

Well, I won't wax lyrical. Here's the bacon and mushroom linguine recipe.

Bacon and mushroom linguine

Ingredients

1/2 a punnet of mushrooms, chopped up - I used white, but brown or portobello would be great, and mixed wild mushrooms would be better
4-5 slices of bacon, chopped - I use back bacon, you can use what ever you like
250 ml cream - I use reduced fat
100 g peas - I just toss some over until it looks like enough
1 onion, diced
1 tsp garlic
1 sachet Ina Paarman's Blue Cheese sauce - or a hunk of blue cheese, which would've been better

Linguine - I use the Bavette (it's in a blue box)

Method:

1. Cook pasta according to packet instructions, until al dente.
2. Heat some oil in a pan, and spoon in the garlic. Fry for a few seconds, and add the onion. Fry until translucent.
3. When the onion is browning, throw the chopped mushrooms in. Don't stir them for few minutes, you want them to brown a little before they start releasing water.
4. Fry the mushroom mixture for a bit, until everything shrinks a little, and its all nice and browned.
5. Throw in the chopped bacon, and turn up the heat a little, frying everything until it's nicely browned.
6. Pour the cream over, and the pour the blue cheese sauce, or crumble the blue cheese over and stir to melt. I used the sauce, and it wasn't cheesy enough for my liking. But we all know I have issues with that. 
7. Heat through, and serve spooned over the linguine. A generous twist of black pepper is great, and I would've loved some grated pecorino, but we didn't have any.

Enjoy!