Red Pepper Cream Sauce

How do you get your kids to eat an entire red pepper and half a zucchini at dinner? Through subterfuge and clever disguise, that's how.  I found one lonely pepper in my back yard and decided to add it to the ones we got from the school CSA last week.  Stir fry, stuffed, soup?  Too much work and the kids will just stare at it for days before they'll put it in their mouth.  Then I remembered that I love the taste of roasted red peppers.  Inspired by the Catalan classic, Romesco sauce, I set about making a dinner that had my little girls wolfing down two portions each. Ha, ha, you girls just had double your daily servings of vegetables, suckers!

Here's the recipe if you're in the mood for subterfuge and/or delicious food:

Romesco/Red Pepper Sauce

5 large red bell peppers
3 large cloves of garlic
1/4 cup  of sliced almonds
1/2 cup of half & half or whole milk ( you can substitute vegetable broth for Vegans)
1 teaspoon of Pimenton/ smoked paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cups vodka ; for the hell of it and also because it's really good!

Wash red peppers, slice in half lengthwise, take out seeds.  Put unpeeled garlic cloves and peppers cut side down on a baking tray lined with foil.  Bake in 420 degrees oven for 15-20 minutes until skin is blistered and peppers are soft.  Take the peppers out of the oven when done and allow to cool until you can handle them.  Peel the skin off garlic and peppers.  Put the baked ingredients along with almonds, half & half, pimenton,salt, vodka into a blender and process until smooth. The consistency should be thick and creamy.  Add more water if your sauce is too thick and a tiny bit of bread if it's too runny.  Adjust salt to taste.

I served this sauce over a pound of cooked corkscrew pasta and added in two sauteed zucchinis and some Italian sausage.  Delicious!