Zucchini with Bits of Bacon

I had to improvise. This week´s French Fridays with Dorie challenge was asparagus with bits of bacon. Guess what? Those green stalks are nowhere to be found. Season´s over and that´s the end of it. Not even a sorry excuse for a stalk can be bought in the market, not even if the vegetable guy is your friend.

I could´ve bought canned asparagus (horrific I know). My next best idea was green beans or zucchini. Since the former is kind of an obvious choice with bacon I decided to use zucchini, cut it in strips without some of the inner seeds, sear it in hot oil and use is as `asparagus´. Roasting them was my other alternative.

And since this was not the original dish, obviously, I decided to take some liberties and used olive oil and red onion. This is a really good, simple side dish. I cooked the bacon, turned off the heat and just put the sliced onion in the pan to cook with the residual heat. It was perfect. Then I added the lemon juice directly to the zucchini, since they already had oil.
They say bacon makes everything better and I usually agree. I found the lemon juice though, to be such an excluding ingredient, I need to emphasize it. Five ingredients that were so much more than the sum of its parts. I believe with asparagus the equation is even better.

And then, while writing this, having eaten a few forkfuls in order to give you an accurate description, I threw some spaghetti into boiling water until they were al dente, put the rest of the zucchini and bacon back in the pan, added the cooked spaghetti, a few cherry tomatoes and had a fantastic dinner. With some grated parmesan. I hope the French don´t mind.