what's cookin' wednesday - PW's spicy pasta salad

many of you know that i am a big fan of the pioneer woman's photography and cooking (and giveaways, even though i've never won one). last week she posted a recipe for a spicy pasta salad featuring smoked gouda (which i prefer to pronounce goo-duh, NOT gowda ronnie!) and i thought it looked like a perfect dish to make myself. i was planning on following it to the tee but when i got to henry's, i got distracted by smoked gouda (goo-duh) with BACON in it! and instead of making my own spicy dressing completely from scratch, i decided to take a bit of a shortcut with a very special mayo. so here are my main ingredients...

see my special mayo?  it's a chipotle lemonaise and it is delicious!  i also used heirloom tomatoes instead of regular (i.e. boring) grape tomatoes, and some casarecce pasta simply because that's what i had in the pantry.  and here's the beautiful finished product...

but you know what the best part is?  the best part is when i tweeted pioneer woman herself to tell her how awesome of an addition bacon is to her salad, she replied that bacon sounded heavenly and that she would definitely add it next time... and then SHE FOLLOWED ME!  a celebrity with almost 200,000 followers, who only follows a few hundred people herself is following yours truly!  and i owe it all to bacon...