Vancouver a kitchen and the passion to cook.. Pappardelle, Morels, Lardons in Light Cream

Pasta With Attitude 

If you travel and happen to have a love for food let me suggest that you look for a place that includes a full kitchen. If you do a Google search start off with"hotel room with a kitchen" and then choose the one that best suits your needs. I normally look for one that is centrally located to most of what I want to do and then close to a food market. If I get a room with a kitchen, I don't have to worry about wasting time for breakfast or lunch and can get right to discovering the city instead of sitting at a diner waiting for food to be cooked for me. This means more pictures and fun....

Traveling is fun when for me when I don't bog myself down with too many details or overburden myself with a "to-do" list. Getting a place with a kitchen is a huge money saver for a lot of reasons but I'll list a few just to get you started. 1) I can buy my own liquor, wine, and beer in bulk so I don't need to be a barfly for the entire time that I'm visiting. 2) If I want a midnight snack I don't have to raid the overpriced and often understocked mini bar in my room. 3) I don't need to worry about spending money for 3 meals a day or skipping a meal. And finally, I don't have to leave my room for a day if I want to just stay in and enjoy the room that I am paying for. 

For this we will need the following:

• Pappardelle (8-12 oz)
• Dried Morels Mushrooms (6 oz)
• Heavy Cream (2 Cups)
• White Wine (1 Cup)
• Garlic (2 Tbs)
• Thick Cut Bacon (6-8 strips)
• Watercress (2 oz)
• Pasta Water (As needed to thicken) 
• Onions (2 Large)
• Lemon Oil (1-2 drizzles)
• Butter (1 Tbs)
• Salt & Pepper (To Taste) 

Prep Work 

Start of by cooking the pasta (pappardelle), keeping the pasta water and steeping the dried mushrooms in the hot pasta water for 7-12 minutes and set aside for later use. Julienne the onions and cut the bacon into strips. Next sauté the bacon until crisp then remove adding the onions to cook in the bacon drippings. Finally add the watercress and slightly wilt (2 minutes) when done set aside for plating later. In a sauce pot add the olive oil and garlic to the heated pan to slightly brown. Now add the heavy cream to reduce by half (really thick) and adding the white wine and allowing this mixture to reduce by half as well.

Heat a large saute pan and adding 1 Tbs butter and then the pasta, mushrooms, bacon, onion and watercress mixture. Toss and add the cream (1 cup) and pasta water (1/8 cup) allowing to thicken and coat the mixture. Salt and pepper to taste. Plate and add a drizzle of lemon oil on top of the mixture.