Tasty Tuesday-Stuffed Red Pepper Pasta

Today's dish uses minimal ingredients and takes hardly anytime to prepare. It has an Italian flavor and makes excellent leftovers. This is a variation of a recipe I recently found in the Nov 2011 edition of Women's Day Magazine. The original recipe is called, Sausage, Potato and Onion-Stuffed Peppers, and is found on page 105. My variation combines this recipe with pasta. Here it is:

Stuffed Red Pepper Pasta

1 14.5 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 tsp dried oregano
S+P
4 red bell peppers
1 onion, chopped
1/2 tsp dried parsley, plus a shake or two more for pasta
1 lb sausage, preferably Italian. (I use Jimmy Dean's low-fat)
1 13.5 oz package angel hair pasta
EVOO
grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Combine crushed tomatoes, oregano, and 1/4 tsp S+P in a slow cooker.
Cut off the top of the red peppers and remove seeds. Keep the top as it will be a lid for the stuffed peppers while cooking. Combine onion, parsley, and sausage. Stuff peppers with sausage mixture and top with pepper lid. Place peppers side by side in slow cooker on top of crushed tomato mixture. Cook 5 to 6 hours on low or 3 to 4 hours on high.

Prepare angel hair pasta according to box directions. Drain, rinse, and return to pot. Drizzle cooked pasta with EVOO and add a couple shakes of parsley.

Remove peppers from slow cooker dumping excess liquid back into slow cooker. Discard pepper lid. Chop peppers and sausage into bite size pieces. Plate the pasta and spoon pepper and sausage mixture over top. Generously spoon tomato and juice mixture over pasta. Top with grated parmesan if desired.
Enjoy!