Tuesday’s Dish – Pasta with Creamy Lemon Butter Caper Sauce

This Tuesday’s dish (that I’m posting a little late -oops!) is a new creation I played with to serve for our anniversary dinner. I wanted something light and figured a pasta with a white sauce would be good. And I firmly believe that there are just not enough dishes prepared with capers (YUM) so I added them to this.

Though I made it with turkey sausage, I originally planned to make with shrimp but we were out of shrimp and, after eating it, we decided that this would be a great meatless dish with the subtraction of meat and the addition of portabella mushrooms. Hope you like it!!

Ingredients:

• Pasta (we used bow tie but anything – probably more hearty than fragile)- 4 servings worth
• Red Bell Peppers – ½ pepper
• Yellow Squash  – ½ squash
• Zucchini – ½ zucchini
• Turkey Smoked Sausage (or shrimp or portabella mushrooms I think) – ½ lbs
• Creamy Lemon Butter Caper Sauce

Sauce:

• Lemon Juice (to taste)
• Minced garlic (to taste)
• Capers (approx.1/2 small jar)
• Margarine (2-3 Tbsp)
• Olive Oil (2 Tbsp)
• Black pepper (to taste)
• Creme of Chicken Soup (condensed) – – (I was planning to use chicken broth and cornstarch but realized I was out of chicken broth so had to improvise. I prefer to use the homemade chicken broth and cornstarch so will do that next time and see if it makes a difference)

Directions:

• Chop turkey sausage into small pieces. Brown meat if using meat (skip step if using portabella mushrooms)
• While browning, dice yellow squash, zucchini, and peppers. Chop mushrooms if using them.
• Once pasta and meat is ready make sauce. Keep pasta and meat warm. Put together in one pot and keep covered.
• In large, deep pan, take 2-3 Tbsp of margarine and melt with 1-2 Tbsp olive oil over low heat. Add 2 Tbsp of minced, garlic (or to taste if you like it more garlicky, which we do).
• Add capers and saute for about 1 minute – don’t let brown.
• Add Creme of Chicken Soup (about 2 Tbsp) or the ½ cup chicken broth and cornstarch to thicken to desired thickness.
• Add lemon juice to taste. Can add caper juice to thin out if gets too thick.
• Season with black pepper.
• When desired thickness, toss in vegetables and saute in sauce.
• Once vegetables are cooked (about 5-10 minutes) add pasta and meat mixture and toss with sauce and vegetable mixture. Make sure heated through.

Serve immediately. Great with green salad. Could serve with homemade garlic bread or French bread.