Easy roasted pepper and tomato sauce

April 19, 2012

Stir the sauce through pasta (homemade!) and serve with a
salad with tomatoes tossed in Caesar dressing (homemade!)
with garlic bread-scotti for dipping

A simple sauce you can just leave to roast whilst getting on with other bits, a really great sauce to go with your fresh or dried homemade pasta. This sauce freezes really well so you can keep a few portions in the freezer for quick dinners or to add to lasagna for a roasted pepper and tomato punch.

Recipe:

Serves 2 people.


1 red onion
1 red pepper
4 big tomatoes, I used vine ripened as they have a brilliant tomato-y aroma and flavour
3/4 garlic cloves
a splash of balsamic vinegar
a handful of fresh basil
4 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
a splosh of water maybe

Turn on the oven to 180c

Roughly chop into bite sized pieces, the onion, pepper and tomatoes. Throw these into a roasting tin with the whole garlic cloves and toss in the olive oil until everything is coated.

Pop the tin in the oven and leave to roast for about 20 mins, then splosh in the vinegar, it should sizzle and reduce. Put the tin back in the oven to continue to roast for another 20 mins until the vegetables are soft and the onions and peppers have a roasted tinge to their edges.

Remove the tin from the oven, find the garlic cloves and squidge out the flesh which should be soft and gooey and beautifully sweet, discard the husks. Pour the vegetables and their juices from the tin into a tall jug and use a hand blender to blend to a smooth sauce. You can obviously use a proper blend for this but I find it takes such a short time to puree it just creates something tricky to wash up.

 Add a little water to loosen the sauce then taste and season with salt, pepper and basil. I like to add the sauce to the cooked pasta (which I keep in the pan in which it was cooked with the water drained out to 'dry') and toss it through using a pair of tongs, picking up the pasta and drawing it through the thick sauce so that all the pasta strands are coated with the rich sauce.

Serve this with a lovely fresh salad, you can use the Caesar salad dressing to toss the tomatoes in. Rather than coat the whole salad I like to shake the tomatoes in a ziplock bag with a dollop of the dressing, then pour these onto to fresh salad leaves as the dressing is very rich and can overpower seasonal baby salad leaves.

Another nice addition to the dinner table are my garlic bread-scotti.. see the recipe above!

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