Fresh Tomato Bacon Pasta

Fresh tomatoes are plentiful this time of the year, and you can’t beat a homegrown tomato for flavor.  They are so good!  This is the best time of the year to pull out all of my fresh tomato recipes and I’ve had lots of them on the menu the last few weeks.  This is one of our favorites.  It’s a simple fresh tomato sauce that is excellent over pasta.  The whole family loves it and it’s a snap to throw together.  A simple recipe but oh so good!

Ingredients:

6-8 fresh tomatoes (homegrown if you can get them)

2 onions, diced

8-10 slices of bacon

2-3 Tablespoons olive oil

fresh basil

hot, cooked pasta

fresh Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Cut bacon in to squares (I use kitchen shears) and fry in a skillet until crisp and brown.

When bacon is crisp, remove from skillet and drain on paper towels.  Set aside.

Pour off about half of the bacon fat,

Then add 2-3 Tablespoons of olive oil to the bacon fat in the skillet.

Dice two onions (this may seem like alot, but it’s not)

And add to the olive oil/bacon fat in the skillet.

Saute in the skillet until the onions are tender and slightly browned.  Don’t rush this, you don’t want crunchy onions in the recipe.  While the onions are cooking (they’ll take 10 minutes or so), dice up the fresh tomato.

When onions are tender and translucent and browned around the edges, add the diced tomato to the skillet.

Continue to heat the mixture until tomatoes are warm all the way through.  You can cook off some of the liquid if you like, but we like the juiciness, it soaks down into the pasta very nicely.  Add salt and freshly ground pepper to your taste.

Then stir in the fresh chopped basil right before serving.

To serve, ladle sauce over the pasta of your choice, and sprinkle with fresh grated Parmesan.