you lose some, you win some

So, I don't think I did too much to hide my disappointment with the Sicilian Market Pasta.  It had so very much potential to be an amazing pasta dish, but just not enough flavor in the end.  I was able to resurrect it and enhance it with some dollar tomatoes, but when I followed the actual recipe, it was nothing Mister and I would eat again.

But the chili was so good we ate until we were fat (which probably contradicts the purpose of the recipe) and Mister actually requested that I heat up the leftovers last night instead of cooking a new dinner.  So, when I got my peppers out to make dinner tonight, I had forgotten that I was afraid her infrequent use of pasta in recipes made Susan slightly less skilled in using it as an ingredient.

When I put my peppers (and tomato) on the counter to wait for their scrubbings, I was struck by the vibrant color contrast.  I love when recipes use multi-colored peppers, because unlike M&Ms, you actually can taste the difference between red and green and yellow.

One of the things I initially found intriguing enough about this recipe to include it in our weekly menu were the instructions to roast the peppers and sausages while the pasta cooked.  Once everything was laid out on the baking sheet, I was struck by two thoughts.

1. Look how pretty those peppers are!
2. Maybe I should just saute these buggers in some olive oil.

In then end, I just hoped the extra spray of olive oil would keep everything from drying out in the oven (my main concern was the Tofurky, honestly) and tried to give Susan another chance.  That positive thinking got me as far as combining the pasta with the roasted peppers and sausages before I started muttering under my breath about how she managed to win blog awards when she clearly doesn't know anything about cooking pasta, and what kind of nut doesn't love olive oil, and how I was going to ignore her blog from this point forward.

In other words, I lost my faith.

Turns out, I was a little premature.  It tasted just as good as it looks.  Granted, I did some serious tweaking to the tomato sauce, incorporated not only a generous bit of olive oil but also my "secret" ingredient - V8 Spicy Hot.  I was right about the sausages drying out a bit, and the roasting enhanced their flavor a little too much for me - they're already pretty intense; they don't need any help.  The peppers, however, were divine.

In fact, the only complaint I have about Pasta with Peppers and Sausage is that my mouth is too small.