Short-order cooking

Thorough disclaimer: I did not cook this recipe. I got stuck in traffic (read: had to stop and buy coffee beans) and my husband got home well before me, so he kindly consented to make the dinner I had planned.

I had picked a penne with bacon, tomato and cheese sauce, largely because it looked like it could be made in 25 minutes, give or take a few. It did take a fairly short time, making it good for busy weeknights. We used turkey bacon, which didn't quite yield the 4 Tbsp. pan drippings the recipe called for, so we threw in a little olive oil.

We ran into a little snag when we tried to open the red wine: Our corkscrew mysteriously disappeared. I was just starting to gauge whether our kitchen scissors would fit in the cork when my husband remembered the never-used wine picnic tote I got a decade ago at a holiday party at work. Like my recipe collection, it's one of those things I just can't part with because someday, we might actually get a babysitter and go do the loaf of bread, jug of wine thing. Anyway, the tote also comes with a handy portable corkscrew, and I knew exactly where to find it.

THE VERDICT: It was a pretty fast cooking recipe, as I suspected. The sauce was tasty enough -- we used Parmesan for the cheese, incidentally -- although a little on the thin side. But as my husband pointed out, he cooked more penne than the recipe called for, so that may have had something to do with it. The bacon added a little variety to an otherwise straightforward sauce. Worth making again, perhaps with a smokier cheese.