Mini Shell Pasta with Smoked Bacon and Pea Sauce

This recipe is absolutely delicious. Greg and I made it for our Valentine's Dinner this past year, and it is super easy and SO good! It is a recipe by Jamie Oliver, whom I love! Have you been watching his new show on ABC? It's called Food Revolution, and he has moved to a small town in WV and is trying to overhaul their school lunches, and basically the community's outlook on food and healthy eating. It's a fantastic show, and if you haven't seen it I think you should give it a go.

Okay, so back to the recipe. Here are the ingredients:

- 10 slices of smoked bacon or pancetta (Jamie Oliver recommends free range or organic)

- small bunch of fresh mint (only use the leaves, and throw away the stalks)

- butter (how ever much you want, I think I used 1/4 a cup or 1/2 a stick)

- 2 cups of frozen peas

- 2 tablespoons of heavy cream (I might have used a little more than this)

- 1 lemon

- 6 ounces of finely shredded parmesan cheese (I bought a chunk and shredded it myself)

- Sea salt and freshly ground pepper (I use kosher salt, it's all I cook with. I love it.)

- 1 pound of mini shell pasta

- Olive oil

The first thing you do is bring a big pot of water to a boil. Add your pasta and cook as directed. Make sure that you add plenty of salt to the water to give the pasta some flavor. And I always add a bit of olive oil to the water to keep the water from bubbling over, and it helps the pasta not to stick together.

Have a large frying pan over medium heat and add the oil and butter. Add the bacon to the pan with some pepper and cook until it is crispy and golden! YUM. Once the bacon is done add the peas and give the pan a good shake to cook the peas. After a minute or two add the heavy cream and mint.

Drain the pasta when it is done cooking, but make sure you save some of the water that you cooked the pasta in. I just grabbed a coffee cup and filled it with water before I drained the pasta.

Add the pasta to the frying pan. Halve your lemon and squeeze the juice over the pasta.

Mix it all together and once it is bubbling, and the sauce has thickened you can take it off the heat, and it is ready to go! If the sauce is too thick for your taste, then just add the reserved cooking water until it is thinned out however you like it.

OH! Last, but certainly not least, add the shredded parmesan! (my favorite) Mix it in and NOW you are ready to serve.

This is perfect for a romantic night in because you'll have plenty of leftovers (and it's still delicious the next day), or this would be super easy if you are having people over for dinner. You just put it in a big serving bowl and let people get as much as they want.

So, there you go. An update since I have been slacking lately. I hope that everyone is doing well, and leave me some love!