Pancetta and Tomato Sauce

It's been a good week of home-cooked dinners for me and Seth. We started off with the Betty Crocker version of Country French Beef Stew in a crock pot, then America's Test Kitchen pork broccoli (think beef broccoli with pork tenderloin) and then Giada's Pasta with Pancetta and Tomato Sauce. All three dishes were pretty tasty, but my favorite was the pancetta and tomato sauce.

It's a simple dish, and if you are a better chopper than I am, it will probably take you only 30 minutes. Or, you could save time and buy the pre-diced pancetta sold at Trader Joe's. I had a difficult time finding pancetta at the grocery store that wasn't going to cost me $10 for six ounces, and I ended up buying half-a-pound from an Italian deli for $5.50.

Which brings me to the changes I made to the recipe. Instead of six ounces of pancetta I used eight, and instead of a pinch of crushed red pepper places, I probably used at least a 1/2 teaspoon (we like things spicy). The pancetta from Lucca's also had pepper around the edges, so this was a pretty peppery dish. I also used fusilli noodles because I have a thing about the way linguine looks. All in all, this was a flavorful and easy dinner to make--we will definitely be eating this again.