Spicy Tomato Sauce with Pancetta!

Hey everyone! Today I'm participating in Suzy at Kitchen Bouquet's Great Cooking Magazine Challenge with a recipe from the Martha Stewart Living April 2010 issue. I'm also joining Masterpiece Monday, Bacon Monday and Foodie Friday.

Spicy Tomato Sauce with Pancetta

This is a simple six ingredient recipe with the only non-pantry item being the pancetta. 

Apparently, we're a bunch of bumpkins here North of Philly and our tastes are not sophisticated enough for local supermarkets to carry pancetta... so I had to sub bacon, see notes below.

This is very good, and I highly recommend it.

Hope you love it if you try it!

Spicy Tomato Sauce with Pancetta
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
4 ounces pancetta or guanciale, sliced 1/8" thick and cut into 1/4" wide strips
1 small red onion (I used yellow)
1/2 tsp crushed red-pepper flakes
1 can (28 ounces) peeled plum tomatoes with juice, coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp Kosher salt

1. Heat oil in heavy medium pan over medium heat. Cook pancetta, stirring often, until golden and fat has rendered, about 8 minutes.
2. Add onion and red pepper flakes, and cook stirring occasionally until tender, about 10-12 minutes.
3. Stir in the chopped tomatoes with juice and add salt. Simmer gently, stirring occasionally until sauce is thick, about 25 minutes. 
4. Serve with pasta and garnish with Pecorino Romano cheese. Your Momma would be happy if you served a salad too:@)
5. Can be frozen for 1 month.

Notes:

• They say you can sub bacon if you boil it for 2 minutes to remove some of the smoky flavor, that 's what I did.
• I did drain all but about a tsp or two of the fat once the bacon had cooked down.
• I cut the tomatoes in half then took a hand held potato masher to them.
• Acknowledging that everyone's tolerance for heat is different, would I personally call this "spicy" as in hot, no. It does leave a warmth after you eat it though. 
• I had to simmer it quite a bit longer than 25 minutes for it to reduce enough.
• This would be great as a Zoodles-N-Noodles dish.

The hardest part of this recipe was not being able to eat it until I took the pics... 

Oh the things I do for you guys-enjoy:@)