Farfalle with Zucchini

This is my version of the Farfalle with Zucchini recipe that was on The Pioneer Women. I followed her recipe pretty faithfully except I added bacon and pignoli (a fancy shmancy word for "pine nut") for some protein. I even went as far as to use fresh basil (though I did leave out the chives and used dried thyme). Unfortunately, I severely underestimated the amount of zucchini I would need (I only used one) but it still turned out good. Even though I used just regular grape tomato, they have that strong, sun dried flavor- which is awesome.

This had the potential to be a very cheap recipe, however, I made the mistake of going to Wegmans which just encourages me to make believe I'm a foodie. Pignolis are expensive ($3.50ish for a small bag) and I bought Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese ($9 for a small block!!!) instead of Parmesan cheese. It probably wasn't the wisest decision but... yeah, no... it was stupid. Those with an underfunded retirement should not be paying $9 for cheese!!! In my defense though, the Parmigiano-Reggiano was really good. But, considering it was going into a dish with strong herbs, I could have used cheap Parmesan and it would have tasted the same. However, I did have a lot of fun eating the cheese as I was cooking.

The packaging on the cheese said it was made from raw milk- which I guess is different from unpasteurized milk. According to Alton Brown, all milk products in the US must be made from pasteurized milk- which kills the flavor. He says if you want to taste real cheese, you need to go to Italy- or Canada (which is closer). Michael's says his family lives in Reggio Emilia- which is where they make Parmigiano-Reggiano... ooh... I wonder if you can mail cheese....

All in all, it costs me $25 to make the dish- which isn't bad considering it makes 6 hearty portions, probably like 8 decent portions.