Today is Ash Wednesday – the beginning of Lent. Part of Lenten obligations is to abstain from meat on Fridays (and today). The typical staples for these days are pasta with red sauce and cheese pizza. Sufficient, but it can get boring. Last year, I marked Lent by featuring a different, meatless dinner recipe ever Friday – I’m going to do the same this year.

We rarely do pasta with non-Italian sauces, so this was a nice change of pace. It has a nice little kick from the chopped green chilis, but the sour cream keeps it from being over-powering. This would also be great with chicken.

Linguini With Tex-Mex Pepper Cream Sauce
(from The Cooking Photographer)
 Serves 6

2 T. olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 t. salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 c. sour cream
1/4 c. cilantro, plus more for garnish
4-oz. can mild diced green chiles
2/3 c. shredded Mexican cheese blend
1/2 t. black pepper
1/8 to 1/4 t. cayenne pepper, to taste
1 lb. linguini pasta

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the onions, bell peppers and salt and cook until tender stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and cook for one minute. Meanwhile cook the pasta in salted water according to package directions

Place the veggie mixture into a food processor with sour cream, cilantro, green chiles, cheese, cayenne and black pepper. Puree until smooth scraping the sides as needed.

Toss the pasta with the sauce. Plate and garnish with cilantro.