This kind of pasta sauce is one of my favorites, because it requires no cooking on top of the stove.  I roast the peppers sometime during the day and when it's time to boil the pasta for dinner, I just whirl all the sauce ingredients up together in the Cuisinart.  It just couldn't be faster.  The heat from the pasta and a little of the hot pasta water combine to help make a no-cook sauce.  Consider this sauce a sort of "master recipe" for your imagination.  You can make all kinds of great no-cook sauces in your Cuisinart.

Readers of this blog know that I really love to roast peppers and I think that everyone should know how to do it.  It's an incredibly versatile thing to do because you can make so many things from roasted peppers, from an appetizer of roasted peppers and mozarella to a great peperonata.  Remember to line your baking sheet with foil, so there is no clean up.  

Ingredients:

• 4 red and yellow bell peppers

• about 2-3 ounces of parmigiano reggiano cheese, cut into chunks

• 1 clove of garlic, peeled

• large pinch of both sea salt and course pepper

• 1/2 teaspoon red hot chili pepper

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

• handful of flat leaf parsley or fresh basil

• 1/4 cup pine nuts

• 12 ounces linguini 

Instructions:

Preheat broiler.  Line a baking sheet with heavy duty foil.  Place peppers on baking sheet and broil, turning as they blacken, until all sides are charred.  Place hot peppers in a paper sack and let steam for 10 minutes.  

Remove peppers and let cool until they are cool enough to handle.  Pick off blackened skin until almost all skin is removed.  It should easily slip off.   Slice off tops, cut peppers in half and carefully remove seeds.  Set peppers aside until you are ready to make the sauce.

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil.  Place cheese chunks in a food processor and grind.  Place the peppers, garlic, seasonings, olive oil and parsley in the food processor and process until just slightly chunky. Place sauce in a large serving bowl.

Boil pasta until al dente (slightly less than whatever the box says) and remove pasta with tongs to serving bowl, retaining the pasta water.  Add about 1/8 cup of the hot pasta water to the sauce and pasta and toss well, coating all the linguini.  If still too dry, add a couple of tablespoons of hot pasta water.

Toss with pine nuts and serve with additional cheese, if you like.

As a variation on this recipe, and Brian's favorite, you can substitute a jar of sundried tomatoes in olive oil for the roasted peppers (leave out the additional olive oil in the recipe).  Make the sauce exactly the same way - it has a very intense flavor.  You can also combine the two - add some sundried tomatoes to the recipe above and you have another sauce. 

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