The Worst Recipe Ever… Or Is It??

This is it.  The seventh sign of the apocalypse must be upon us.  Pigs have flown.  Hell has frozen over.  It is evident by the fact that against all the laws of nature, every member of my family happily, and with enjoyment, ate Recipe #119: Roasted Red Pepper Pasta.  SAY WHAT?!  I know… could have knocked me over with a feather.  If you had told me that I would ever, EVER have liked a meal that consisted of a sauce made entirely of red peppers, I would have ejected you from my home for speaking such a filthy lie.

But here I sit, flabbergasted!  Ree should get a raise for this one.  Mind you, this anomaly will not convert me to the point of adding stuffed bell peppers to my weekly menu, but it was a bonafide miracle how much we all liked this dish.  The kids even stole all the leftovers before I got home to sample another bite.  So how did Ree accomplish this unprecedented enjoyment of my least favorite ingredient?  Stay tuned…

It all started with a jar of death… I mean, a jar of fire-roasted red peppers.  Gross.  They were already de-skinned and floating in some concoction of seasoned oil.  Trust me, I didn’t examine it too closely.  This recipe essentially treated peppers as though they were tomatoes, and all I had to do was drain and roughly chop them, then add to a pan with sautéed onions and garlic.  Irritatingly, this mixture actually smelled pretty good cooking over the fire, as the sharp acidity that I dislike so much in peppers was reduced in the roasting.  Incidentally,  I used red onions in this recipe even though it called for white, both because I was out of white onions, and because I was trying to work in as much sweetness as I could.  Once the vegetables were cooked through and softened, into the food processor they went, to be pulverized to a thick paste.  Then back into the cooking pan, where I added a cup of chicken broth and some heavy cream, which resulted in this orange-ish color.  PS, No Grocery Month took its toll here too, and I actually used half-and-half since my heavy cream went off last week!  Still worked though.  Ok, this was turning out pretty well so far.  Ree suggested rigatoni as the pasta, but I had some orecchiette I thought would be perfect.  (As my Italian lessons have taught me, “orecchiette” means “little ear”, just in case you’re interested!)  I’m endlessly fascinated by the seemingly infinite amount of pasta shapes available, and the heated debate of which pasta is appropriate for which sauces and toppings.  I just thought it looked cute, so I bought it!

While my little ears boiled away, I added the last ingredients to the red pepper sauce: S&P, parmesan shavings and fresh parsley.  According to her cookbook photos, I think the cheese was supposed to be left until the very end as a finishing touch, but frankly I wanted to melt it in and disguise as much of the pepper taste as possible.  Lastly, I elected to go with one of Ree’s variations on the recipe, in which she suggests adding some chicken or shrimp.  GENIUS!!  I had half a bag of Schwan’s Garlic Shrimp left in the freezer, and I figured if anything was going to save this recipe from being a complete disaster, it was seafood.  I said a prayer and dumped the whole bag right in the sauce and covered it with the lid.  In a few minutes the pre-cooked shrimp were thawed and had added their seasoning to the overall flavor.  All Italian chefs (and probably regular chefs too!) will tell you to add the unrinsed pasta straight to the sauce and stir, versus dumping the sauce on top of the pasta; that makes it stick better.  If the sauce is too thick, you are supposed to add a bit of reserved starchy pasta water until you reach the desired consistency.  I rarely ever bother with all that mess, but I do follow the pasta-to-sauce method.  If it’s on Food Network, it has to be valid, right??

Well…  moment of truth.  I got my spoon out and brought a taste to my lips with eyes scrunched and shoulders tensed, fully prepared to LOATHE the flavor.  And then I got a bigger bite.  Then I dished up a big bowl.  It was freaking delicious.  Mind.  Blown.  The kids are about as enthusiastic about peppers as I am, but they both complimented it AND had seconds.  My backup plan of a trash can full of dinner and bowls of cereal instead never came to fruition, and we have a new dinner option that will find its way into the rotation! Well played, Ree…  Well played!