Pasta with a Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic Sauce

Once in a a blue moon, I can cook other things than potatoes for my husband;-). On those days, my choices are still limited : croque-monsieurs, crepes or pastas. Today too lazy to fix crepes, and wanting to fix a more balanced meal, I chose to cook pasta. Cooking pasta is so much fun, because you can dress the pasta in a million different way, yet when your family do not care to have seafood or vegetables in their pasta, it somewhat restricts you with what you can prepare. Since my husband loved red pepper, i chose to prepare the pasta with a red pepper sauce. I usually make a creamy sauce where I puree the red pepper and add cream, but tonite I decided to go a lighter way.

Ingredients: 2 red pepper, 1 whole head of garlic, salt and pepper to taste, linguini or spaghetti, 2 tbsp of fresh basil chopped, 1 package of four cheese italian sausages from Johnsville, olive oil, fresh parmesan.

Slice the red pepper in half, remove the seeds and place the red pepper open face down on a silpat as well as the garlic head. Cook in a warm oven at 450 for 30 minutes or until the skin of the red pepper is scorching. Remove the red pepper from the oven and place them in a ziploc bag. Place them in the fridge to cool.

Meanwhile add 1 tsp of olive oil in a frying pan. When the oil is getting hot, add the sausages and cook them on medium-high for about 5 minutes. Turn the heat down to medium low, cover the pan and cook them for another 7-10 minutes or until they are cooked through. Make sure to turn them during cooking so that they are cooked evenly on all sides. When the sausages are cooked, set the pan aside and keep warm until the rest of the meal is ready.

Cook the pasta according to the directions of the package. While the pasta are cooking, prepare the sauce. When the pepper have cooled ( 10-15 minutes), remove the peppers one by one from the ziploc bag and peel them. Place the red pepper and the garlic in a chopper and puree them. Add the chopped basil, 1 tbsp of olive oil, 1/4 tsp of salt, 1/8 tsp of pepper and mix well. When the pastas are cooked, drain them and add 1/4 cup of the sauce in the pasta. Mix well. Slice the sausages in 1 inch cut and add them to the pasta. Serve tha pasta on each plate, drizzle more sauce and sprinkle some fresh parmesan. Et voila!!!