Two months ago, I decided that I wanted to make another pasta dish, as it had been some time since me and my family had eaten any! Out came the recipe books and I found this charmer right here. Tweaked slightly to meet personal preferences, it's definitely something that will be made again in this household. Also the first recipe that I've had to roast veggies for, definitely going to do that more for other creations as the smell and flavor are wonderful <3

Chilli and Bell Pepper Pasta

Ingredients:

• 2 red (or orange) bell peppers, halved and deseeded
  
• 1 chilli pepper (for those of you wanting some heat, I suggest a cayenne pepper. For mild, maybe a poblano or jalapeno pepper)
  
• 2 to 4 garlic cloves, whole
  
• 4 tomatoes, halved
  
• 50 g, 1 3/4 oz ground or shaved almonds
  
• 7 tbsp olive oil
  
• 1 1/2 lbs dried pasta (I used the garden/tri-colored rotini pasta)

Directions:

1. Preheat your broiler on high (if you dont have a broiler, most ovens do have an option for it to be a broiler too) Place the bell peppers skin-side up, tomatoes skin-side down, the garlic cloves and chilli pepper on a baking sheet (cookie pan). Cook in the broiler/oven for 10 minutes. Pull the tray out, flip over the tomatoes to where they're also skin-side up, and put back into the broiler for another 5 minutes.
2. Place said veggies into a polythene bag (if you dont have any, a gallon sized ziplock bag is fine) and let them sweat for 10 minutes.
3. Remove the skins from the bell and chilli peppers, slicing the flesh into strips. Also skin the tomatoes and peel the garlic.
4. Place almonds onto a baking sheet (can be the one used earlier), and place in broiler/oven for a minute or so until golden. (When we did this, the almonds baked really quickly and we almost lost a good amount to being burnt, so be careful! You can still use the burnt ones, but don't need to send the kitchen up in smoke)
5. Using a food processor (or in my case, blender), blend the bell pepper, chilli, garlic, tomatoes, and toasted almonds into a puree. Keeping the motor going, slowly add the olive oil into the puree to create a thick sauce (Don't rush this! Some recipes need to have ingredients added slowly so they can properly mix together and not separate. If you go too fast, it may break the entire mixture and that's not something you wanna do).
6. Keep the sauce warm by keeping it in a saucepan and heated throughout until ready for serving.
7. Cook the pasta in a saucepan pf boiling water to the instructions on the packet/box. Drain pasta and transfer into a serving dish.
8. Pour pasta over the sauce and toss to mix.

Garnish with fresh oregano leaves, chopped.

This was definitely a different type of pasta for me and my family. We eat a lot of meat, so such a recipe was interesting for us. This could easily be converted into a dish with meat as seasoned ground beef or seasoned/marinated chicken would be wonderful with it, I believe. When we made the dish, we used what Walmart called a "hot red chilli pepper" but when we ate, there wasn't any heat at all. The 5-6k scoville level that was described was nowhere in the sauce. Adding a bit of tobasco easy fixed that problem and gave it a great warmth and spice.

One batch of this can easily feed 5 people, so it's definitely something for leftovers if by yourself or with your significant other.