Fancy on the Fly

Today, i was reading Pioneer Woman's blog, and found her latest recipe here.  It sounded interesting and inspired me to do something else, which i'll tell you about here.  I used ingredients that i actually had in my house at the time.  That's the main difference.

The Pioneer Woman was making a pasta dish with thin spaghetti, the makings for a thin alfredo sauce, for some reason diluted with chicken broth and white wine.  The sauce also included (to my delight) mushrooms and bacon.  Yum!

Here's my version.  You're going to need mushrooms, cloves from two garlic bulbs peeled, butter, bacon, angel hair spaghetti, dill, salmon, and alfredo sauce.

I started early working on the garlic.  Then i used my Quick Chop.  Yes, i own a Quick Chop, and yes, i use it.

See how nice that is?

Next i cut a whole package of bacon into pieces and heated on medium heat.  Pioneer Woman uses what looks like an aluminum pan for this, but around here, we dig some cast iron.

Then i went outside to pick flowers and burnt the bacon.  Don't do that.  You'll have to start over.

Here, this is better.  I cooked the bacon pieces until they were just crispy, then scooped them out of the grease and drained on a paper towel.

Then i put a heaping tablespoon or so of the diced garlic into the bacon grease and heated until the garlic started to turn brown.

Then i added mushroom slices.

I used my Wildtree Alfredo Extraordinaire sauce mix.  I drained the mushrooms and garlic on a paper towel and added them with 1/2 the bacon bits to the alfredo sauce.

Next is the salmon.  I cut an entire salmon filet into 4 pieces and rubbed the flesh side with butter, the remaining garlic, and a lot of dill.  In retrospect, i should have rubbed it with salt too, but at the time, i was concerned that the bacon grease would add too much saltiness.  It didn't.  I put the salmon pieces skin side down in the bacon grease and heated on low heat with the lid on until the butter started to melt.  Then i turned it up to medium heat and took the lid off.  I was trying to get the skin side to crisp up, which it did.  Then i flipped the pieces over.

Like this.  After i was convinced the fish was done, i turned off the heat and put the lid back on while i prepared the pasta.

I used angel hair pasta because it's what i like the best.  It cooks really fast, so don't let it get soggy.  When it's done, drain the water and add the alfredo sauce and toss around a little with some tongs to mix it up good.

Here's the finished product.  Isn't that nice?

I served it with a salad, and it was perfect.  I put half the mushrooms and the remaining bacon pieces on the salad.  It was super scrumptious. We have enough left to do it all over again.  How exciting.

Hubby especially loved the pasta, which he was surprised about because the sauce appears sparing - but tastes really really mouth-wateringly-ireallywannagogetsomemorerightnow-good.

There's my fancy Monday night meal on the fly.

Here are flowers that cost me a whole package of bacon.  They just bloomed in my yard, and i wanted to rescue them before the snows come tomorrow and kill them all away.  At least i can enjoy them on my table for a little bit.  Aren't they nice?  Surely spring really will come soon.