Springtime Alfredo Pasta with Bacon

Finally it's Spring (well officially it has been for 14 days now).  It's a beautiful time of the year!

I love Spring - new flowers growing and blooming, warmer weather, longer light hours (daylight savings is around the corner) and the new season fruit and vegetables are starting to appear in the supermarket produce section.

Everyone's favourite is pasta - such a fabulous comfort food especially creamy pasta.  Alfredo is one of my daughter's "to die for" sauces and to be honest if asked it would be a toss up between Alfredo or Carbonara every single time if I allowed her to choose the sauce for the pasta dish.

Now you may see a few changes with the blog and I am pleased to announce that we will be moving over to a website in the near future.... change is good though.  I am working on it so that's a positive.  The other change is that I am no longer a member of Weight Watchers for a variety of reasons and therefore loose access to the online tools where I build in many recipes to receive the ProPoints per serve.  Where I can I will try and add them to the recipes but don't stress I will still endeavour to post healthier options of recipes etc.

Springtime Alfredo Pasta with Bacon

Serves: 4

250 grams fettuccine or pasta of your choice

1 medium head of broccoli, cut into florets

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 brown onion, finely chopped

250grams reduced fat bacon

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 red capsicum, chopped

400 grams button mushrooms, sliced

2 medium zucchini, quartered lengthways and sliced

1 tablespoon water

1 tablespoon cornflour

1 x 375ml can light evaporated milk

1/3 cup extra light cream

1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese

Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling water as instructed on the packet or until just tender. Drain and return to pan.

Meanwhile steam, microwave or boil broccoli until just tender.  Set aside.

Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat.  Add onion and bacon, cook for 5 minutes, stirring, until onion is softened.  Add garlic, capsicum, mushrooms, zucchini and water.  Cook stirring for 5 minutes or until capsicum is tender.

Place cornflour and 1/4 cup evaporated milk in a jug and whisk well.  Add remaining evaporated milk to jug.  Add to the vegetable mixture and cook, occasionally stirring, for 5 minutes or until the sauce boils and thickens.  Add the cream, parmesan and the broccoli and stir until heated through.

Add the vegetable mixture to the pasta and stir gently to combine.

(click here for a printable version of this recipe)