Begin with flavor, and you'll end with it, too

A person could log hours of search time online with “one-pan” or “one-pot” between the quote marks. We're led to believe such recipes have gotten so crazy popular because cooks are looking to do less cleanup, especially on weeknights.

We're all for making things easy, but when dried pasta is involved, the trade-off is often gummy noodles or a bland-tasting sauce. Neither one of those happens here, however.

Make sure all the pasta is submerged for cooking; if that means tamping it down with a spatula or adding a touch more water, the dish can handle it.

Instead of tossing all the ingredients in together, as in the original recipe, we used the olive oil to saute the shallot and bacon for a few minutes first, to coax out their flavor and create more texture. Sage complements the cubes of sweet potato, which become almost creamy by the time the final flourish of cheese goes on, but we liked using fresh tarragon as well.