Balsamic Vinegar Pasta with Sautéed Red Onions & "Bacon"

First off, bacon is in quotation marks because I obviously used fake bacon, aka Boca Bacon. But the dish that I was attempting to replicate had real bacon in it. Here is the story behind the dish: When I was in Rome (Italy) about a month and a half ago, my sister had a dish for dinner that she loved, but I wasn't able to try it because it had bacon in it. She thought the combination was so unique and so original... and she begged me to try and replicate it when we got back home. Sadly, I wasn't able/didn't replicate it until the day before she left for college. While I thought the dish was absolutely fantastic, she too thought it was quite good, but not the same as what she ate in Rome. Anyways, here is the recipe, I really recommend you make it, I doubt you've had anything like it before!

Balsamic Vinegar Pasta with Sautéed Red Onions & "Bacon"

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of dry, straight pasta (I had to use penne because that's all I had in my pantry, I wouldn't use it again)
• 1 small red onion
• 6 strips of Boca Bacon, broken into pieces
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 TBSP butter
• 2 TBSP olive oil
• Approx 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• kosher salt
• fresh ground pepper

Directions:

1. Cook pasta according to package directions, drain and put back into pot.
2. Cut red onion into thin slices then cut those slices in half. Heat up olive oil in a frying pan, add red onions and saute until translucent. At the same time, cook the Boca Bacon in your preferred way. I personally liked cooking it in the skillet.
3. Break up cooked Boca Bacon pieces and stir in with the red onions. Add about 2 TBSP of balsamic vinegar and minced garlic; cook for about 2 more minutes so the balsamic vinegar's flavor has some time to infuse into the onions. Add kosher salt and a few grinds of black pepper to taste.
4. Stir onion/Boca Bacon mixture into pasta. Stir in the remainder of the balsamic vinegar and serve immediately while it's hot!
5. Sit outside and Enjoy!