4 ingredients

Last night was my turn to make dinner. It was the end of a long day, I was tired and had no thoughts on what to cook. As Nic and I sat down for our evening beer to relax and unwind I asked what he fancied thinking it would be something Asian. "Pasta, I could eat some pasta" was his reply.
With that I finished my beer and headed for the kitchen, I knew we had bacon in the fridge so I was thinking maybe a spot of carbonara, then I spotted a chilli- nice a little heat to give it a kick, then I thought maybe I'll give this '4 ingredient' idea a go. (For all of you who haven't heard of the 4 ingredients- basically two ladies got together and wrote a cookbook using a maximum of 4 ingredients per recipe. They sold millions and millions of copies and haven't looked back).
So to start with I had my pasta, chilli and bacon that left me with the addition of only one more ingredient. I had to choose between onion and parmesan. I was stuck!
After a few moments of deliberation I decided to go with the parmesan, however as I open the fridge I spot a bunch of basil. Come on I mean you can't go wrong with bacon, chilli and basil but where were my veggies? I'm always telling the kids they MUST have salad or veggies with the evening meal so how was I going to fit it all in?
I think it took me all of 5 seconds to dump the idea of 4 ingredients and go with 4 x 4 plus a few more instead. The following recipe was mighty fine, took maybe 5 minutes longer than if I'd only used the original 3 ingredients and in my families opinion tasted AWESOME!
I take my hat off to the ladies who invented the concept but I'm going to have to take a pass on the concept until maybe Friday when my cupboards will be bare and I'll be rattling through the kitchen trying to find 4 ingredients!

 4 ingredient pasta- NOT
1 pkt spaghetti
1 tablespoon butter
3 rashers of bacon, finely shredded
1 medium onion, small dice
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 red birds eye chilli, finely sliced
1 bunch asparagus, cut into 4 cm pieces (about 1 inch)
3/4 cup frozen baby peas
1/2 cup shredded basil leaves
1/2 cup shaved parmesan

Pop on a pot of water to boil with a pinch of salt.
Cut all ingredients and have them set out on a plate ready to go.
Melt butter in a large frying pan, once bubbles appear add bacon and stir.
Put pasta on to cook and add onion and garlic to bacon, saute on MEDIUM heat to soften onion.
Add chilli, asparagus and peas with a pinch of salt and a good grind of pepper.
Saute for a few minutes then add about 1/3 cup of pasta water to make a sauce.
Drain pasta, turn off heat for sauce.
Add pasta, basil and parmesan- stir to combine then serve.

Note: the chilli really didn't have that much heat in it so the kids were fine, however if you don't want to add it, it will still taste fabulous!