Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Roasted Red Peppers and Cashews

I made some amazing pasta tonight!! Matt said it was probably the best he's ever had! I had 6 leftover red peppers that I needed to do something with, so I roasted all of them on my gas stovetop (I LOVE fresh roasted red peppers). Second, I've really been wanting to try using cashew milk instead of cream in a recipe. Sounds like the perfect combo to me!

Here's what I did:

*Place 6 red peppers atop gas stove (or you can broil them in the oven), turning after skin is totally black. It usually takes about 20 mins or so. Once the pepper is completely black, wrap each pepper in foil and let sit for 20-30 minutes to steam itself and cool a little.
*cut one onion into small pieces and sauté until soft and translucent. Add some garlic and sauté another minute or so. Add about 1/2 cup white wine or chicken broth and cook down a little.
*add 1-2 cups of raw cashews to a food processor and add about 1 cup of water. Mine ended up kinda chunky and thick but I liked it that way. The way I saw it made before was more the consistency of cream, so just add more water to your liking. Set aside.
*go back to the peppers and use the foil to push the black off of the peppers. It slides off really easily if blackened. Then take the seeds and stem off. This gets very messy, but is well worth the effort.
*add the peppers and onion/garlic mix to the food processor and blend until smooth.
*to the sauté pan, add the blended mix and the cashew milk to the pan and heat on low
*I added homemade garlic salt (YUM! I'll add the recipe soon) and pepper and some fresh chopped basil. I also added one packet of Splenda for a little sweetness, some turmeric because its really good for you, and also cayenne for a little kick.


This was DELICIOUS!! Please try it! I served it with some Giada DeLaurentis Pasta I found at Target, al dente of course! The pasta isn't anything healthy at all, I just loved the shape of it though!!