Friday, July 26, 2013

Hello?! ... Remember me?! ... And Red Pepper Pasta

I know. I know. I know. Every year I say I'm going to keep up my food blog, and it ends up going by the wayside, like most New Years' Resolutions. I have been busy this year, but that's no excuse, really. I'm always busy. But, I have been trying to remember to take pictures of some of the dishes I cook so that I can eventually, some day, maybe get them posted to my blog. A friend asked me about my blog last night, and I felt guilty that I had to tell him that I haven't kept it up this year. So, here's a post to get me started again. Hopefully, I'll keep at it.

Pioneer Woman's Red Pepper Pasta

I may have previously mentioned Ree Drummond a/k/a Pioneer Woman. Her blog is hilarious, her recipes delicious, and that cowboy husband of hers is hawwwwwwwtttttt! She posted a recipe for Red Pepper Pasta that sounded really yummy, so I decided to try it. I actually followed it almost exactly (you know I have to change at least one thing), AND I remembered to take some photos along the way.

You can follow the link to the recipe, so I'm not going to list it exactly here. But it contains onions, garlic, roasted red peppers, veggie or chicken broth, heavy cream, parmesan cheese, basil, parsley, and the pasta of your choice. I chose papperdelle pasta, which is basically broad, flat noodles.

First, I sauteed onions and garlic in butter.



Next, I added in the chopped red peppers and cooked them for a few minutes.



I poured the onions, garlic, and peppers into my food processor and pureed it.



I put my pasta on to boil while I sauteed some zucchini. This is where I deviated from Ree's recipe in that I decided to add in some zucchini.  I put the pepper puree back into the skillet with the zucchini and some broth, plus salt and pepper, and heated it back up, then added the cream.




By this time, my pasta was done so I drained it then mixed it in with the pasta along with parmesan cheese, basil, and parsley.

And, voila!



This entire dish only takes about 30 minutes to cook and tastes sooooooo good!  Most ingredients I would normally have on hand, so long as I remember to keep roasted red peppers in my pantry.  You can make this totally vegetarian by using veggie broth and not chicken broth. Otherwise, you could also put some grilled chicken on top or some grilled shrimp if you want to add in some protein.

I've passed this recipe on to several mommy friends, and their families all raved about it. I hope you enjoy it too!