Adventures in Cooking: Bacon Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1lbs bacon
• 4 cups broccoli, frozen is fine
• 1 bell pepper, pick you favorite color
• 1 onion, med - smallish
• Mushrooms, used baby bella, maybe 8
• Condensed can of cream of mushroom soup
• Sharp Cheddar
• Parmesan
• Box of Pasta of choice
• Salt/pepper/garlic
• Butter

Cook:

• Chop pepper and onion
• Heat pan, melt butter, should be sizzling not burning. One - two tablespoons, should cover bottom of pan. 
• Put bacon in oven to cook. Goal is to have it crisp, just shy of burnt is ideal. 
• Add pepper and onion to pan and stir into butter, season with salt/pepper/garlic. This is the base so don't skimp. As for my measure... Couple of 3 finger and thumb pinch of coarse kosher salt, even dusting on whole pan of garlic (something like half a clove of minced fresh would be better), and a light even dusting of coarse ground pepper... IE you shake in an area till you see the flakes and move around the whole pan until it is all speckled. 
• Chop mushrooms
• Once onion is translucent and pepper softening add mushroom and mix well. Should end up with a buttery consistent slightly browning from heat concoction that smells pretty good. 
• Add can of mushroom soup, get some warm water from tap in the can (or milk for richer option) to swirl off some of the remains. 
• Mix in soup and add water until consistency of sauce is reached... Continue to use as needed to control temp and cook down. Getting the consistency you want here is more important than amount used. 
• Add broccoli and mix in well. Do not add until you are sure rest is done as do not want to over cook it. Goal is to keep it a bit crisp. 
• Add cheese... to taste really. Dusting of parmesan, maybe half to 2/3 cup of sharp cheddar cubed up small enough to melt fairly fast. Should be in process of melting when you turn the heat off (judge against broccoli). 
• Remove bacon, Rough chop. Mix in to sauce. 
• Cook pasta (don't forget to season water) 
• Drain, add butter (Another 1-2 tablespoons), maybe a touch of seasoning. Judge based on level of sauce because it will add plenty. 
• Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom... enjoy. 

Notes:

• The bacon will be the predominate flavor, keeping the pepper and particularly the broccoli towards the less cooked end will add texture as will any really crispy bits of the bacon
• Mind the salt added level vs the condensed soup you choose... very important to taste before adding the soup as you want it under-salted, especially if you want it thicker. But you need to cool some salt into that base mix.
• If you are going to skimp on butter then skimp or skip the pasta step... olive oil instead may work in place of butter in all steps but have not tried. 
• Broccoli could be cooked separately to make sure it isn't overcooked... just adds to number of pots. Like using frozen as it can help cool down sauce at a critical time.