Last night I knew it was time to use up the bell peppers I had sitting in the fridge for about a week. It's not that I didn't want to use them. I just didn't have the time. From going away the past weekend for Labor Day to settling back in after a short but very nice visit back home, there was no time to cook! But yesterday, I knew my precious bell pepper's shelf life was coming close. Fortunately, when I took them out of the fridge, they were still quite firm and bright and very tasty looking. I wanted to cut them up and eat them with ranch dressing right there!
But I needed to make dinner, and I already knew what I wanted to do with them. A while back I was watching Easyway Gourmet with Kris Capra (a very vibrant and enthusiastic lady to watch on TV) and she made a delicious looking dish with roasted bell peppers and farfalle pasta. I've always wanted to try it but I felt roasting bell peppers is too time consuming! Now I realize how wrong I was. The few extra minutes you put into roasting the peppers is WELL worth it.
I wasn't able to find the exact recipe but I put something together that I think went very well together. For this dish I used FARFALLE pasta which is better known as bow tie pasta. In Italy, farfalle is actually a word for "butterfly". And if you look at the shape of these cute little pasta, you'll see that they do indeed resemble a butterfly or a bowtie. I also had some chicken and apple sausage links my dad gave me from Labor Day weekend so I used that along with leftover shredded rotissere chicken. That's the good thing about this pasta dish, it's very versatile and you can use almost anything you like (within reason of course).
Roasted Bell Peppers and Butterfly Pasta- about 2 good size servings
2 sausage links (whichever kind you like, I used chicken and apple)
2 bell peppers
1/3 cup shredded chicken (optional, I had some left over)
2/3 cup chicken broth
1 lemon or lime (I prefer lemon but I only had lime at the time)
2 Tbs butter
1 ½ - 2 tbs capers (coarsely chopped)
1 tbs minced garlic (estimated)
1 pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
1 tsp of Italian seasoning (optional)
2 cups farfalle (bowtie) pasta
2 tsp olive oil for the sauce
Canola oil for broiling the bell peppers
Salt and pepper (I acutally didn't add any extra salt aside from what I used for the bell peppers)
Preheat oven to broil, rub canola oil all over bell peppers and season with salt and pepper.
Broil peppers for about 10 minutes, turning peppers over half way, until charred (skin turns black). Take peppers out (careful they’re HOT) and transfer to a bowl and cover to let peppers cool.
Once bell pepper cools (should take about 20-30 minutes) remove the stem and peel off the skin of the bell peppers (the skin should come right off). Take out the seeds and cut the bell peppers into about 1 inch pieces then set aside. Discard stem, skin and seeds.
Meanwhile bring pot of water to boil. While waiting for the water to boil, mince garlic and capers and set aside. Take sausage links and cut into bite size pieces. Once water boils, salt the water generously then add the bowtie pasta. Give it a quick stir to prevent clumping. As pasta cooks, heat a large pan at medium heat. Add olive oil and cook the sausages. This should take about 7 minutes to get nice browning on the sausages. Remove sausages then add garlic, let garlic heat up then add chicken broth, butter, and juice of half of the lime. Stir and let butter melt. Once butter melts add capers, red pepper flakes, Italian seasoning and then lower the heat. Continue cooking the sauce for a few more minutes.
Once pasta finishes, add pasta to sauce and stir to incorporate all the sauce. Let cook for 1-2 minutes then add bell peppers and shreds of chicken. Continue mixing all the ingredients, then squeeze second half of lime and give pasta final stir. If you have fresh parsley or basil, chop some up and add to garnish and flavor!
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