Pasta Amatriciana - Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Meals

Oops, this picture did not come out very well. I should have taken more than one picture this time. About eight years ago Hubby and I spent a weekend in Vegas and had a great time. I had a pasta dish by this name at an Italian restaurant we visited. I thought it was fantastic and Hubby enjoyed the taste he had as well. After we got home we found a recipe for this dish and tried making it ourselves. It turned out really well at home too, but then we forgot about it and have not done it again since. When I saw this dish in Rachael's book I knew it would be one we should attempt and see what we thought of the flavors.

It took me longer than expected to cook it all because the bacon took a while to cook and this recipe used the same pan to cook everything. I was also very surprised that the recipe had me scrape all the bacon grease out of the pan before cooking any of the rest of the ingredients. That took a lot of the flavor out of the pan. In the end, I felt that the onions needed to have a longer cooking time as well, they needed to soften a bit longer.

The sauce was fine, but nothing special. Many of the recipes in this book are faster versions of classic recipes that often take quite a long time to cook. If someone had never had another version of these recipes that had been cooked longer then they would probably enjoy these recipes a lot. I just feel that most of the time these recipes need more time to create the layers of flavor that make them special.


Timing: Recipe States: 30 minutes, My Actual Timing: 42 minutes
Servings: Recipe States: 4 servings, Servings For My Family: 6 servings
Leftovers:


Family Ratings:
Me: This recipe was fine, but nothing special.
Hubby: He wanted more bacon flavor and for the onions to be cooked longer.
Big Man: He thought it was great and we should have it again.
Bear: He just wanted to find all the bacon and kept hunting for the pieces.
Mr. T: He ate all his pasta and asked for more.

Will I repeat: Probably not.

What will I change: I do not think I will repeat this one, if I did I would cook the onions longer and leave a few of the drippings in the pan to add the bacon flavor to the sauce.