Pasta with Romesco Sauce, Shrimp and Romanesco

Now, I have to admit, before yesterday I had never even heard of romanesco.  I had no idea what it was or what it was supposed to taste like. What do I do with this funny, spiky looking thing?  So, I did some research.  It turns out that romanesco is a cross between a cauliflower and a broccoli (I'm still not sure why it's so spiky though).  After I told my mom about it, she sent me a link to a recipe called romesco sauce.  To which I immediately though, this would be so good with baby shrimps and the romanesco!!

So, my mission today was to make this tasty sounding sauce, that actually has hazelnuts (because I didn't have any almonds) and crusty bread, along with some red bell pepper (I didn't have the jarred roasted peppers, so I used fresh), canned tomatoes, ground red pepper (since I apparently don't have any paprika) and some garlic. I also added a bit of onion, which I think helped the flavor quite nicely.  This is then blended in a food processor (or blender in my case) and poured out onto a baking sheet and baked in the oven for 15 minutes.  I've never heard of baking a sauce in the oven!  The caramelized effect that this gives it really is quite nice though.

While the fresh pasta that I picked up from Whole Foods today was cooking, I placed the sauce in a small pot added some cooked romanesco and the baby shrimps and I warmed this over low until the baby shrimps were warmed through.

To top this pasta dish I shredded some gouda parrana (so tasty) and chopped some fresh parsley.  I also served some fresh bread and mixed olives.

This was one of the tastiest pasta dishes that I've ever had (since I'm not a huge fan of pasta, this is saying a lot from me). Apparently everyone else thought it was pretty good too, because my boyfriend had two big bowls of it and Dylan had no problem at all scarfing hers down. I think that I will definitely be making this again!

As for the romanesco?  I loved it! I think that I actually like it better than broccoli or cauliflower and I love both! In fact, everyone loved it and said that they thought it had a wonderful flavor to it.