Bacon and Butternut Pasta with Knorr

Happy Valentines Day!

Are you dining in or eating out for the heart holiday?  In case you’d like to get cozy with a home cooked meal, here’s a great one for you to try, whether it is today or later on.   However you celebrate Valentines Day, I wish for all of you a wonderful day with your loved ones.

This year has been great so far, with more opportunities coming along for me than ever.  One of them is an extended relationship with Knorr for the next couple of months.  So excited to be back again with the Knorr 4 girls, Sweet Basil, Crepes of Wrath, and What We’re Eating.  Check them out too for more recipe ideas.  Today, I’m sharing a delish recipe featuring Knorr Chicken Concentrate Stock. When I was looking around to find a recipe that I could make at home, I realized that we had butternut squash and kale from the garden on hand.

Pasta is one of my faves, so this combo didn’t sound half bad to me. It was a gamble, all these flavors together, but I’m happy to say, we all loved it. Even my dad, who can tend to be a bit picky on any dish that resembles gourmet, gave it his stamp of approval and mom said she would make it again.

There is one ingredient in this recipe that you may have a hard time finding.  See that cute little Alouette tub of Creme Fraiche?  Yeah, I had to go to 2 different stores to find it.  Finally nailed it at Publix, but it was an elusive little thing.  This is my first time ever using it, but it really added some nice flavor to this dish.  It resembles sour cream in texture and taste, but it doesn’t curdle when mixing it in with hot chicken stock.  If you live in a small town, you may not find this easily.  Have you used it before?

Once again, Knorr’s Homestyle Chicken stock was on hand and I mixed up 2 cups for this recipe.

Sautee the onions and garlic.

Cook the ziti pasta and in the last 2 minutes, add the chopped kale.

We had already roasted the butternut cubes in the oven until soft.  All of this is mixed together in a big bowl and the cream sauce is added at this point.  Oh, and there’s bacon in this too.  The flavors were really tasty.

Pour into a sprayed 9×13 dish.

Add the Gruyere cheese on top and bake at 400* for about 25 minutes.

And it’s a cheesy on top creamy deliciousness right out of the oven.

All those flavors meld together into a really great comfort food.  This is a recipe from Cooking Light magazine, which I’ve just started getting in the mail.  I was a little apprehensive about all these ingredients, but since we already had the butternut squash AND kale, it was a no brainer.

And we were not disappointed.  I would totally make this again.  Here’s the recipe for this yummy comfort dish:

Bacon and Butternut Pasta

5 cups (1/2 inch) cubed peeled butternut squash

1 TBL olive oil

Cooking spray

12 oz. uncooked ziti, campanile, or other short pasta

4 cups chopped kale

2 bacon slices

2 cups vertically sliced onion (ok, so I chopped mine in chunks)

1 TSP salt, divided

5 garlic cloves, minced

2 cups Knorr chicken Concentrate stock (this is Cooking Light after all & they called for low sodium, but I used my Knorr)

2 TBL all-purpose flour

1/2 TSP crushed red pepper

1 cup creme fraiche

1/3 cup (about 1 1/2 oz) shredded Gruyere cheese

 

1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. Combine squash and oil in a large bowl; toss well.  Arrange squash mixture in a single layer on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray.  Bake at 400° for 30 minutes or until squash is tender.
3. Cook pasta 7 minutes or until almost al dente, omitting salt and fat.  Add kale to pan during last 2 minutes of cooking.  Drain pasta mixture.
4. Cook bacon in large nonstick skillet until crisp.  Remove bacon from pan, crumble.  Add onion to drippings in pan; cook 6 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add 1/2 tsp. salt and garlic; cook 1 minute, stirring occasionally.
5. Bring 1 3/4 cups broth to a boil in a small saucepan.  Combine remaining 1/4 cup broth and flour in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk.  Add flour mixture, remaining 1/2 tsp. salt and red pepper to broth.  Cook 2 minutes or until slightly thickened.  Remove from heat; stir in creme fraiche.
6. Combine squash, pasta mixture, bacon, onion mixture, and sauce in a large bowl; toss gently.  Place pasta mixture in a 9×13 glass or ceramic baking dish coated with cooking spray; sprinkle evenly with cheese.  Bake at 400° for 25 minutes or until bubbly and slightly browned.

Serves 8:  Calories: 388; FAT: 15.4g (serving size 1 1/2 cups)

So, what do you think?  Would you try this one?  I really loved the mix of flavors that this recipe offers.  So, if you like all the ingredients, I think you’ll like this one!

{Note:  I’m very happy to be a Knorr 4 spokesperson once again for the next couple of months, so you will be seeing a few more recipes from me using Knorr products.  Knorr compensates me for my time.} 

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