When one of your favorite media personalities tells you that your food looks great, you make a special dish just for her! This bacon and mushroom pasta dish mixes the salty smoke of the bacon with the amazing umami flavor of mushrooms! Guaranteed to please all!
Streaming is the future
When I was young, I was always excited to come home in the afternoon and catch the afternoon television line up. Always geared to kids, afternoon television was what every kid my age lived for. That, however, was a different time for a different age group.
Today, entertainment is moving to the internet. You can already see it with mainstream television and the "cord cutting" movement, but it's bigger than even that. Streaming is big business. Video games are being watched all over the world. People are becoming stars right from the living room of their homes. I was reluctant to make the move to modern streaming entertainment at first, but then I found something really great.
The Blevins Family
Most of my friends play video games. I have been an avid player from the time I was young. As I got older, the games evolved with me. I went from trying to save the princess to much broader multiplayer style games. That's when my friends and I found a game called Fortnite.
Battle Royale style games have been on the rise for a few years now, but Fortnite shoved them into the forefront of the mainstream media. Geared towards younger kids and adults alike, it provides a level of entertainment that's hard to find in any other type of game. And at the head of the Fortnite community was Ninja.
Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins (https://twitter.com/Ninja) is arguably the largest name in video game streaming in the world. His amazing presence and entertaining gameplay make him affable and just fun to watch. I was hooked immediately. And as I grew as a fan of his, I also found his wife's online presence.
Jessica Blevins (https://twitter.com/JessicaBlevins) is Ninja's wife and manager. She runs his day to day business operations and she has done incredibly well! She has helped turn Tyler into a brand. It is quite amazing to see! But, she's also a streaming presence in her own right. This is where I got to know her. She streams video games, but she also does cooking demonstrations and really connects with her fans. I immediately became an active member of her community, and I have not been disappointed. Her friends and loyal fans are always warm and inviting, and Jessica helps to make it feel like a family. So, when she invited me to her discord channel where she allows people to connect, and, pertinent to this blog, share their food ideas with each other, I jumped at the chance.
The Ghosties
I began sharing my recipes with the "Ghosty" community long before I started this blog. I always got positive response. A lot of encouragement there and in other places (my family has always been my biggest fans) drove me to create this content. I found that I love to share my love of cooking with others! So, when Jess told her streaming family that she was impressed with my recipes, I knew I had to create a recipe just for her! That's where this pasta started.
Bacon, Mushrooms, and Pasta... Oh My!
Jess told us that some of her favorite foods are bacon, mushrooms, and pasta. If you read any of this blog, you KNOW that pasta is my not-so-secret second love. So, I decided that I would put these amazing flavors together in a creamy pasta dish that will simply knock your socks off!
Let's talk mushrooms. There's a couple of different kinds here. For this dish, I added both Cremini mushrooms and Porcini mushrooms. Porcinis almost always come dried and have to be rehydrated, while Creminis are also known as "Baby Bellas" because they are actually Portabella mushrooms before they grow to full size. The Porcinis give off a deep umami, almost beefy, flavor while the Creminis give more of a punch of flavor. The two together are amazing in this recipe!
Since you have to rehydrate the Porcinis, you also get the added benefit of creating an amazing mushroom stock as a byproduct. This gives the whole dish the beefy Porcini flavor. Add that to the bacon, the shallots, and the garlic, and I guarantee you that you will be in umami heaven!
For bacon, you could use pancetta, just like I did here (https://tasteoftravis.com/blt-pasta/) but I feel like just regular smoked bacon plays better with the mushrooms here. I also recommend cooking the shallots and garlic in the bacon fat, but be sure to save some of that fat for the next time you're making eggs! You can also use any kind of pasta here. I threw in some bucatini because the hole in the middle of the noodle helps carry the sauce to your taste buds!
Wrapping it up
This pasta dish is not terribly difficult to create, but man is it tasty. I just finished a bowl at the time of this writing, and I can't wait to have more! I hope that Jess, the whole Blevins family and the Ghosties loves this dish. It's guaranteed that anyone that puts this together for their family will put a smile on their face! Enjoy!
Creamy Bacon and Mushroom Pasta
Ingredients
- 16 oz pasta of your choice I used bucatini
- 8 oz Baby Bella or Cremini mushrooms – sliced thin
- ¼ cup dried Porcini mushrooms – rehydrated and chopped details in directions
- 6 slices smoked bacon – chopped
- 1 medium shallot – finely diced
- 3 cloves garlic – crushed or minced
- 16 oz heavy whipping cream
- ¼ cup unsalted butter
- ½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
- 1 cup water
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp fresh Italian Parsley – chopped for garnish
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Before beginning prep, bring 1 cup water to a boil. Remove from heat and pour over Porcini mushrooms in a heat proof bowl.
- Allow Porcini mushrooms to rehydrate for at least 30 minutes while prepping additional ingredients
- Once mushrooms are rehydrated, remove from stock and chop. Reserve first ⅔ of the stock for cooking. Discard bottom ⅓.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until “al dente” or 1-2 minutes less than package instructions
- Bring a large skillet to medium high heat. Add olive oil and sauté Cremini mushrooms until soft. Remove mushrooms to a paper towel line plate
- Add bacon to pan and cook until crisp. Remove to paper towel lined plate. Reserve half of bacon fat for later meals.
- Add shallots to pan and cook until translucent. Approximately 8 minutes.
- Add garlic and cook until fragrant. No more than 30 seconds.
- Pour in mushroom stock into pan and scrape up all bits on bottom of the pan to deglaze
- Cook mushroom stock over medium high heat until completely reduced. Add chopped Porcini mushrooms to pan
- Add in butter and melt, mixing into mushroom and shallot mixture. Mix in heavy cream until completely combined.
- Return Cremini mushrooms and crispy bacon to sauce, reserving some bacon for plating
- Once pasta is al dente, add to sauce and toss. Cook until pasta is done.
- Remove from heat and add Parmigiano-Reggiano. Stir in until completely melted and added to sauce.
- Plate and top with reserved bacon and parsley. Serve immediately
[…] while back, I wrote a recipe for one of my favorite streamers Jessica Blevins. I used to be very active on Twitch, and I got […]