Roasted Red Pepper, Garlic and Parmesan Sauce over Linguine, Shrimp and Spinach

I love roasted red peppers.  I love garlic.  I love Parmesan cheese.  So I figured why not combine them all to make an easy pasta sauce for some whole grain linguine I was making that night.  I had half a bag of frozen shrimp (sorry, but shelling, deveining and cleaning fresh shrimp isn't my cup of tea) that has been sitting in there for awhile and half a bag of fresh spinach leaves that needed to be used up in the next few days.  I figured those would make a nice addition to my throw together pasta dish.

Roasting garlic is so easy to do and tastes amazing which makes it well worth the time...especially when most of the time is spent baking it in the oven.  There really is very little prep work to it and roasting it in the oven is pretty fool proof.  The texture of roasted garlic is super creamy...almost like butter.  I like spreading a whole clove on a piece of toasted baguette and sprinkling a little pepper and Parmesan cheese on it or better yet turning it into a bruschetta.  YUM!

I have yet to try roasting red peppers, but I do plan on planting a red pepper plant in the garden this year so I might try my hand at it sometime this summer.  This seems slightly more intimidating than roasting garlic.  I do always have a jar of roasted red peppers on hand in the fridge though because I do like to dice them up and throw them on or in a lot of dishes...especially ones that have pasta in it. 

The pasta dish turned out great and the leftovers reheated nicely...I'm going to be finishing them up today for lunch which will be a nice compliment to the rain, thunder and lightning that has unfortunately been forecasted for THE ENTIRE DAY.  Maybe Brenna will feel like doing some baking when she gets home from school today.  I need something to distract her from not being able to play outside this afternoon.  I'm thinking zucchini chocolate chip muffins or sugar cookies might do the trick!

Roasted Red Pepper, Garlic and Parmesan Sauce

1 whole bulb of garlic

1 small onion, cut into quarters

1/2 of a whole roasted red pepper

1/3 c Parmesan cheese

Olive Oil

Salt & pepper to taste

Slice off the top part of the garlic bulb exposing the tops of the cloves.  There is no need to remove the skin from the bulb just yet.

Place on a large sheet of foil and surround with the onions.  Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Wrap the garlic and onions up in the foil.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50 mins.  Once it's done baking, place it aside to cool slightly.

Unwrap the garlic and onions.  It should look something like this.  Roasted garlic...YUM!

Remove the cloves from the skins and discard.  Place the roasted garlic cloves, onion, roasted red pepper and Parmesan cheese in a small food processor and puree well.  Drizzle in olive oil and continue to puree until smooth.

The finished sauce.

In a small pan I steamed the half bag of spinach.

The defrosted shrimp.  Like I said, I don't peel or devein shrimp, but I did remove the tails myself...does that count?!?

In a medium pan, melt 1 tbsp unsalted butter and dd 1 tsp minced garlic, parsley, salt and pepper.

Add the shrimp and saute for about 3 mins.  The shrimp are already precooked so don't overcook them or they will be rubbery.  Nasty!

In a bowl, combine the cooked linguine, shrimp, spinach and sauce.  Toss well to coat.

I served mine with a little more sauce on the top and some steamed broccoli on the side.

Quick, easy and delicious!