Shrimp and Bacon Vodka Pasta

It's much too late for me to come up with a clever name for this. It started out with James wanting Penne a la Betsy, but I have vodka I really needed to use, so I decided to make a Vodka sauce, which I have never even tasted. So I researched and found that all good vodka sauces start with pancetta. Being lazy and cheap, I decided to use bacon and make it up as I went along.

What resulted was a slightly sweet, slightly smokey, very flavorful vodka sauce that James liked even better than Penne a la Betsy (but isn't everything better in the variation with bacon??)

Shrimp and Bacon Vodka Pasta

1/2 lb pasta (we used spaghetti. use whatever you have)
6-8 slices of bacon (we used turkey bacon) cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1 lb raw shrimp, peeled without tail

1 pinch smoked paprika

1 dash cayenne pepper

1 dash salt
1/3 cup vodka
1/2 cup half and half
1 1/2 cups prepared tomato sauce

1. Boil pasta per directions

2. Fry bacon over medium heat in a skillet until it starts to get crispy, but not completely finished.

3. In the pan with the bacon, stir in shrimp, paprika, pepper, and salt. Cook shrimp until opaque and pink. Remove shrimp (but not the bacon!) from the pan.

4. Add vodka to bacon, bring to a boil, and let it simmer until reduced by half.

5. Add half and half and tomato sauce. I used a storebought (GASP!) spaghetti sauce. If you're using the pure plain stuff, add some seasonings here.

6. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes.

7. Combine shrimp, pasta, and sauce, and serve!