Oyster mushroom and pepper sugo - like a vegetarian Bolognese

Ingredients:

1/2 red bell pepper
1 red hot chili pepper
1/3 cup sliced onions
2 large cloves of garlic
1/2 cup strained tomatoes
2 tsp pasta water
1 cup oyster mushrooms
salt and pepper


To follow up on my resolution, here is my first vegetarian dish. While medieval monks circumvented the meat restriction by simply baptizing pigs with the name 'fish', I took a more conventional route and began with a pasta dish featuring roasted bell pepper and oyster mushrooms. As you will see, in the spirit of mindfulness, some of the recipes prepared during my lent series might take a little longer to prepare, thus providing the opportunity for looking inside.

The first preparation was putting the bell pepper and the red hot chilli pepper in the oven for about twenty minutes to roast with the skin facing up. The sweet fruitiness of the roasted bell pepper would provide the perfect contrast to the heat of the chilli and garlic, as well as the crispy mushrooms.

In the meantime, I chopped the onion and the garlic and sauteed them over very low heat. Once the peppers were tender and soft, I added them to the pan with the strained tomatoes and pureed everything. Depending how thick you like your sauce, you can also put in a little bit of the pasta water, letting the sugo simmer over low heat.

If you're not a big fan or oyster mushrooms or as a variation of regular tomato sauce, you can stop here and add the pasta. To add more texture to the dish, I fried the oyster mushrooms in a second pan in good olive oil until crispy and then transferred them to the sauce to season it with salt and pepper.

Served with my all time pasta favorite, spaghetti, what a delicious beginning of my lent resolutions!

Life is good!