Red Pepper Sauce with Courgette Pasta

A massive challenge in the past few weeks has been trying to come up with non-tomato based sauces for pasta. It's even more of a challenge when said person you are cooking for doesn't like lemon or pesto and is limited in the types of creamy white sauces she can have. But finally we've found the money prize! It's a bit of a faff to make but so worth it in the end, and if you make a lot it's easy to store in the fridge or freezer. Even better news is that this recipe is extremely low calorie and bursting with veggie goodness. 

Red Pepper Sauce with Courgette Pasta (under 300 calories per serving)

Ingredients: (Serves 1)

For the sauce:

• 3 red peppers
• 1 leek
• 1/4 cup sweetcorn 
• 1/4 tsp sweetner
• Shredded basil leaves, to season

For the courgette pasta:

• 1 1/2 courgettes 

Method:

For the sauce:

• Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Place the peppers on a baking tray and roast for 20 minutes. Meanwhile chop up the leek into 1/2cm round circles. Take out after 20 minutes and add the leek. Roast for another 20 minutes, until the skins of the pepper are fairly blackened. 
• Take out of the oven and remove the top, centre and all seeds from the peppers. Then peel the skins off the pepper. Chop pepper into thin strips.
• Add the pepper and the leek into the blender, but keep a handful of the leek to the side. Add in the sweetner and blend until you have a smooth consistency. 
• Pour the sauce into a saucepan and add the rest of the leek and the sweetcorn. Keep on a low heat whilst cooking the courgette pasta.

For the courgette pasta: 

• Cut the ends off the courgette and then use a peeler to peel into thin tagliatelle-esque strips. Peel until you get to the seeds then stop. 
• Bring a saucepan of water to the boil then boil the courgette strips on a fairly high heat for about 3 minutes.
• Drain the courgette then serve. Add the sauce and then season with basil.