Creamy Facon, Mushroom and Avocado Pasta

There was a definite plan when I set out to make this pasta sauce which was to as closely as possible replicate a sauce that my mum made up sometime during my teens. Chicken, bacon, cream and cheese were all components of the original recipe, so there was quite a bit of replacing to do.

The chicken never really brought a lot to the sauce, it was more about the combination of the chicken and the bacon with the latter being the predominant flavour. So I decided to concentrate on the bacon component and fortunately there was a batch of facon on hand from the recipe that was recently blogged about by Johanna @ Green Gourmet Giraffe via Sarah @ The Ordinary Vegetarian and originally by No Meat Athlete. It was sampled for the first time in this meal and the unanimous household agreement is that we all prefer tofu bacon. This facon had a great flavour but I thought that the texture wasn't as good.   

I decided against using dairy replacement products like Tofutti or cheezly as I wanted the sauce to be full of fresh non-processed ingredients. Instead, I opted to make a creamy cheesy sauce out of cashews, soy milk, nutritional yeast, lemon juice and miso. 

As there was such a definite picture in my mind about how the meal should taste I judged it rather harshly. It was actually quite a nice meal just not close enough to what I was aiming to replicate. It has given me some ideas on what to do differently in order to get it closer next time and tofu bacon will definitely be included!

Creamy Facon, Mushroom and Avocado Pasta

Olive oil spray
12 slices facon
4 spring onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
150g button mushrooms, sliced
2 medium tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup cashews
3/4 cup soy milk
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon white miso
salt and pepper, to taste
1 avocado, chopped
fresh parsley, for garnish
250g linguine

Place cashews, soy milk, nutritional yeast, salt, smoked paprika, lemon juice and miso in a blender and process until a very smooth sauce forms.

Spray large saucepan with olive oil spray and fry facon slices over medium heat for a couple of minutes on each side until browned. Remove the facon and chop into bite sized pieces.

Place linguine in a bot of boiling water. 

Spray the saucepan used to cook the facon with more olive oil spray. Fry the spring onions and garlic over medium heat for a minute then add the mushrooms and cook until softened. Push the mushrooms to one side of the saucepan, add the tomatoes to the other side and cook for a couple of minutes. When the tomatoes are breaking down and becoming soft, mix the mushrooms and tomatoes together then pour in the blender mixture and facon and stir through. Season with salt and pepper.

Drain the linguine when cooked, then add it to the pasta sauce. Stir until thoroughly combined. Serve topped with chopped avocado and parsley.