Wholemeal bacon, herb and tomato pasta

This pasta is a nice light basic dish. It has a subtle flavour of herbs, bacon and tomato and uses my new favourite spice- smoked paprika, which gives it a wonderful subtle smoky flavour with the bacon.

The amount of herbs I use is a guide, feel free to add more if you like.

Ingredients:

- 4 Bay Leaves
- Pink Murray River Salt flakes
- 2 1/2  tablespoons dried onion
- 8 fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
- Palm full of fresh oregano, roughly chopped with any woody stems removed.
- Medium bunch of chives, chopped
- 450g Cherry Tomatoes
- 8 rashers of bacon, preferably frozen
- smoked paprika
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil, you will need a total of about 9 tablespoons
- 1/2 teaspoon Hot English mustard
- 2 Tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
- Herbamare Vegetable Health salt
- 300g wholemeal pasta

Method:

In a pot add enough water to cook pasta with 4 bay leaves, and a large pinch of salt flakes, bring to the boil.

While you are waiting for the water to boil to add your pasta, get a large mixing bowl and add 1 tablespoon of dried and shredded onion, the chopped basil leaves, chopped oregano and chopped chives.

At this point your water should be boiling, so add the pasta to cook. Once the pasta is cooked to your liking, drain and add ( including the bay leaves) to your herb mixture and mix to coat herbs evenly over pasta.

Take your 450g of cherry tomatoes and divide them in half. Take one half of your tomes set aside and cut each tomato in half and add to you herbs in the bowl. take the other cherry tomatoes you set aside and puncture them with a knife (so the juices leach out when cooking) then add them to a fry pan, preferably non stick. Take your 8 rashers of frozen bacon ( they can be a little thawed at this point ) and dice them.
Add to the pan with the tomatoes and start to cook, the juice form the tomatoes and frozen bacon should be enough to cook them in so you will not need oil.

Once bacon is starting to cook add 1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika and stir until paprika is mixed evenly and the bacon and tomato turn a beautiful red colour. Then add 1 tablespoon dried onion to the pan and cook for one more minute or so. Once this is done, take off heat and add to pasta dish with 5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon hot English mustard, 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese and 4 pinches of Herbamare vegetable salt. Stir, then let sit in the fridge overnight for flavours to develop.

The next day take out of fridge and stir so that the juices that have collected at the bottom coat the pasta evenly, then add 1/2 tablespoon dried onion, 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika, 2 pinches of Herbamare salt and 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Mix together and enjoy.

Enjoy