Dairy & Tomato Free Pasta Sauce

Being lactose intolerant means you don't get to experience the wonderfulness of alfredo sauce. No big deal right? After all you can just switch to a classic marinara sauce. Unless you can't eat tomatoes. Now, that makes things a bit tougher. The third option is pretty decent but flawed as well because I'm not a fan of the flavour of olive oil. So I went a looking and came across a few ideas that basically worked as stepping stones to get me to this recipe. The first recipe I found had me boil the vegetables before putting them into the food processor. While it did taste good, it wasn't exactly the flavour I was searching for. So I decided to put together this creation. It was so flavourful that I felt like I'd put too much sauce on my pasta and it was overriding the flavour of the tortellini I was eating. So the next meal that I ate, I used only a trace of sauce and that was more than enough. A little definitely goes a long way with this recipe, and once I figured that out I enjoyed the sauce much more. I will be making this variation again, and I would like to try it with a less flavourful pasta such as spaghetti noodles (or anything that doesn't have a filling already).

In addition, I ended up adding coconut milk as an after though. Simply because after all the work I put into the sauce, it didn't product a huge amount after it went through the food processor. Plus it was exceptionably thick and I just happened to have some coconut milk hanging around that needed to be used before its looming expiry date. It was the first time we'd bought coconut milk, we've always just used soy milk (vanilla flavoured to be exact), and while the soy milk does amazing things for baking or pancakes (tastes like rich buttermilk pancakes), it isn't the best idea to add to a savoury dish. I was worried that adding the milk would water down the flavour too much but that didn't happen. Amazingly enough, I started adding 1/8 cup of milk at a time until I got to the desired consistency. I would have never guessed that it would take over a cup to thin it down (the puree just kept sucking up the liquid), and the flavour of the veggies still came through. Next time I may use slightly more milk, say 1 1/2 cups, to get it just a little bit thinner, but that really isn't too much of an issue, just me being picky. It was perfectly fine as it was and that is the story behind how I ended up with a creamed roasted red pepper sauce.

By the way, sorry about the lack of quantities for the herbs. I really don't measure my spices and instead just eyeball them.

Ingredients

1/3 Red Onion
1 Yellow Onion
5 Sweet Red Peppers
1 Head of Garlic
2 Carrots
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Basil
Oregano
Sage
Dried Chili Pepper Flakes
1 1/4 C. Coconut Milk
Dash or two of Hot Sauce (optional)

Directions

~Preheat oven to 425 F

~Cut vegetables into large chunks and separate and peel the cloves of garlic.

~On a cookie sheet (or large baking dish), toss vegetables with enough olive oil to evenly coat all surfaces.

~Season with salt, pepper and herbs (I used fresh herbs-the first batch of the year from our garden yahoo!)

~Place tray into oven and bake until vegetables have softened and browned. About 30 minutes.

~Remove tray from oven and scoop vegetables into food processor and pulse until smooth.

~Add coconut milk and the hot sauce if desired and pulse again to mix.

~Serve over fresh pasta or store in refrigerator for a later date. (If serving right away, you'll have to reheat the sauce, as the milk will have cooled it down.)

Enjoy