Goat Cheese & Red Pepper Fettucine - Home Cooked Recipe 34

Often I am inspired by other food bloggers.  I like home cooks such as myself who are as passionate about food as I am.  I love to look at their pictures, see what kind of foods they're making, and read their stories and recipes.

I've followed a handful of food blogs for a couple of years now, and they are listed here on my own food blog.  One of the sites I visit frequently is Closet Cooking.  A man in Canada writes weekly (sometimes more) about his recipes.  His name is Kevin, and he takes great pictures that make me crave some of the delicious food he's making.  Check out the link for Closet Cooking under my heading "Links To Great Food Blogs" on the right side of the page (if you are viewing the mobile version of this site you'll have to click the button that takes you to the full site first).
Anyway, Kevin had a great recipe posted last week that I had to make.  It looked delicious and easy, and spole to my craving for creamy pasta.  The recipe is for Roasted Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Alfredo Pasta and you can find the original recipe Here.
As I usually do with new recipes, I tweak them to suit my own tastes.  In this case I left out the basil but added a dash of cayenne (my favorite spice!) and a dash of granulated garlic (in addition to the fresh).  Also, instead of pureeing the sauce like the original recipe calls for I left the sauce as is and mixed it with the pasta (although next time I will puree it, I just made the recipe later at night and didn't want to pull out the food processor and wake anyone up).  The other thing I did differently was reserve about 1/2 an ounce of the goat cheese to sprinkle on top when serving (and I liked this step so I think I'll stick with it).
Here is my version of Kevin's recipe, it's sweet, tangy, creamy, spicy, and just delightful as a pasta dish in general.

Goat Cheese & Red Pepper Fettucine
Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound pasta
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 clove garlic, grated
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 4 ounces goat cheese
• 1/4 cup parmigiano reggiano (parmesan), grated
• 2 roasted red peppers, small dice
• sea salt and coarse black pepper (freshly ground) to taste
• dash of cayenne
• dash of granulated garlic

Directions:

Begin by boiling your fettucine according to package directions.

While the pasta is cooking, make the sauce.  Start by melting the butter.  Then add fresh garlic, and sautee for a few minutes until garlic is fragrant (be careful your pan is not too hot, you don't want the garlic to brown or burn - it will get bitter).  Then add cream, goat cheese, parmesan, and red peppers. Stir well and cook until cheese melts into sauce.

Drain pasta and add to pan with sauce.  Toss well.

To serve, plate pasta and then sprinkle with parmesan and top with a few goat cheese crumbles.

Enjoy!