Impromptu Dinner

For most of the weekend, J has been hounding me to write this entry. Last Thursday we had the Marrieds over for an impromptu dinner. Boy Married watched tennis with me and Girl Married read trashy magazines with J. I made my satay vegetarian meatballs for an appetizer (which ended up being a main course) and the Marrieds brought over some fresh vegetables from their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). We marinated the vegatables in some garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt and grilled them on the grill pan. BTW it's been the entire summer and we haven't used our outdoor grill once. However we've used the grill pan at least 10 times. What does that say about us? TO go with the grilled veggies, I put together a pasta salad with a roasted pepper sauce. This is seriously about cleaning out our fridge because we have six red peppers on the verge of going bad. It was a hit with everyone and J wanted me to write down the "recipe." As a perfect ending to the meal Boy Married went to the 7-11 and got ice cream sandwiches for all of us.

I'm going to write this in narrative form because a recipe seems so hard a fast for this pasta dish. I first roasted three red bell peppers in the toaster oven at 450 degrees for about 25 minutes until the skin got charred and started to separate from the flesh. Then I put them in a bowl covered in plastic wrap to steam. After a half an hour I peel the skin off, put them in a food processor with four peppadews that were in the fridge, three cloves of roasted garlic (I put them in with the peppers halfway through the broiling process), a few dashes of the balsamic, about 1/4 cup of olive oil and some red pepper flakes and S&P. Whirl until its a saucelike consistency and toss with pasta. I used tri-color rotini. I also added some peas and a healthy does of grated pecorino romano. This sauce is also great as a dip if you mix in a block of softened cream cheese and 1/4 cup of sour cream.