Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
I really love butternut squash. It’s great cubed and roasted, the way I cook most root veggies, or made into a puréed soup, but sometimes I want to make something that requires less active prep or cooking time than either of those options. Especially when my hands or wrists are tired or sore, I don’t want to peel and cube a squash, so I’ve found another preparation method that’s a lot easier for me. I cut the squash between the bulb and the neck, then cut each piece in half and lay them flat, cut-side down, on a baking sheet, bake them until they’re soft, and then just sauté them a little with seasonings of various sorts and call the squash stuff a pasta sauce.
Pasta with Butternut Squash Sauce
1 butternut squash
~12 oz pasta
olive oil
1 T caraway seeds
3 cloves garlic
2 t cumin
1/2 t cayenne
1/2 t salt
1/4 t black pepper
1 t dried basil
1 t dried parsley
2 T vinegar
1 t garam masala
~1/2 oz sharp cheese (I used Birchrun’s Fat Cat)
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Wash and quarter the butternut and place the quarters face-down on a greased baking sheet. (You might want to put the neck pieces on a separate sheet or otherwise plan to bake them longer than the bulb.) Bake about 40 minutes or until there’s liquid bubbling under the pieces of squash and the flesh is soft. Meanwhile, prepare the pasta, set it aside, and chop the garlic and start to sauté the caraway (or cumin, or fennel, or mustard) seeds and then the garlic. When the squash is cooked, scoop the flesh from the rind and add it to the garlic and seeds. Season to taste, adding liquid (I didn’t think of it while I was cooking, but white wine or beer would probably be good options) until the squash mixture is the consistency of a thick pasta sauce. Add some cheese, stirring until it’s melted in, and then add the cooked pasta and stir to coat.
