Tomato and pesto sauce

Some friends came over for supper last Saturday and she requested the pasta with roasted red pepper sauce, which is a mix of a tomato sauce with pesto. I made this years ago, from the Epicure cookbook that I got. I do still sell Epicure, but it's just once in a while sort of thing, and I do love their spices.

This was perfect since I'm cutting back on meat, so I'm sharing this awesome vegetarian pasta recipe

Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper sauce

1 lb bite sized pasta (use any pasta you want, which I used spaghetti)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 - 7.25 oz (210 ml) jar roasted red peppers (or you can roast your own)
1 - 19 oz (540 ml) can tomatoes (I just used tomato sauce)
2 tsp (10 ml) VE Mint (Epicure sells this, but I didn't have any on hand so I used fresh mint)
1/3 cup (80 ml) prepared VE Pesto (I had this spice so I made it according to the spice jar, but you can make your own pesto)
Salt and pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

In pasta pot, cook pasta according to package directions.
In a large frying pan, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Sauté onion and garlic until softened
Drain roasted red peppers, reserving liquid. In a food processor, combine with tomatoes and blend until smooth. Add to sautéed onion and garlic.
Add Mint and Pesto. Simmer 10 minutes until slightly thickened.
Moisten cooked pasta with liquid from roasted peppers. Add sauce and season to taste with Salt and pepper. Serve with Parmesan cheese.

My friend and I wanted to do a bit of shopping before supper so I ended up putting this all together into the slow cooker and put it on low. I got it ready first thing in the morning, and to make it more chunky, I added a red pepper (chopped) and also some mushrooms. I also didn't use the liquid from the roasted peppers, I just added some sauce to the pasta to prevent the pasta from sticking together, and so that the pasta can absorb the flavors of the sauce.

It turned out great, it was so good! Our friends also really enjoyed it. The guys really wanted some meat though so I marinated some chicken in some tomato sauce with rosemary for them. I also prepared some garlic bread and my hubby and I enjoyed a nice Italian wine to go along with it.

For dessert we had apple crisp. I had left over sauce and not enough pasta, so the next day I cooked up some macaroni brown rice pasta, and we have been enjoying the left overs for our lunch.

It was a great night with friends, and we will be celebrating Christmas with them in a few weeks, along with more friends. We are doing a pot luck style get together, and I will be trying out 2 new dips from Epicure, and I'm looking forward to it.