Roasted Pepper & Sweet Potato Pasta - Quick & Easy # 7

Today I have a wonderful pasta dish to share with you - one of those serendipitous discoveries that comes about when an unplanned fridge/pantry raid to come up with a meal without having to run out to the supermarket yields unexpectedly good results.

I had only myself to feed and thought it might be a good opportunity to get creative with a few leftovers.  A scramble around in the fridge unearthed half a yellow pepper, one orange pepper, one lonely little bocconcini, a piece of feta and some olives.  I also discovered a sweet potato, and about three packets of varying pasta shapes, each with just a handful of pasta left in them.

First of all preheat the oven to about 220 degrees C (425 degrees F), and set a large pot of water over high heat to boil.

Peel the sweet potato and cut into chunks.  Core and deseed the peppers and cut into thick slices.  Put both the sweet potato and peppers into a roasting pan, drizzle with a little olive oil, sprinkle with some flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Cook in the preheated oven until the vegetables have softened and are starting to brown and caramelise - about 20 minutes.

Add pasta to liberally salted boiling water and cook until al dente.

Drain pasta and put into a warmed serving bowl.  Crumble cheese over the pasta and toss through.  Add the hot vegetables, a good handful of olives.  Drizzle liberally with extra virgin olive oil (the best you can lay your hands on) and add a drizzle of pomegranate molasses.  Season with flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Toss everything together well, and serve immediately.

This was one of the best pasta dishes I've had for ages - I loved the combination of the caramelised peppers and sweet potato with the sweet tartness of the pomegranate molasses, spiked with the saltiness of the feta and olives - I thought this was a winner.  I will definitely be wanting to make this again, and now that I've shared it with you I'll be able to do that.  You see, so often I create something in the kitchen, without keeping any record of it, and then some months later when I want to make it again I can't remember what I did.  Do you do that?

I'm also submitting this post to Presto Pasta Nights, which is being hosted this week by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast - you will be able to see a full round-up of all the submissions there on Friday 3 December.   In the meantime, visit Denise at Oh Taste n See on Saturday 27 November to see a round-up of last week's entries.  I'm looking forward to checking out a whole lot of new pasta dishes.