Pasta with Butternut Squash Sauce, Sausage & Spinach

It was Mardi Gras yesterday. A day to essentially eat guilt-free before giving something up for the next 40 days. As a result, I decided to make one of my favorite new dinner recipes - Cavatappi pasta with pureed butternut squash sauce, sauteed spinach and seared chicken sausage.

Ingredients:

Sage 
Garlic
1 Shallot
1 tbsp Butter
Cavatappi Pasta
1 Butternut Squash
Grated Parmesan Cheese
3 Handfuls of Spinach
1 Package of Chicken Sausage 

Boiling squash in action!

To start, peel the skin off the squash, cube it and throw it in a pot of boiling water to cook and soften. Once it is cooked through, use a food processor to puree the squash until it is a smooth and creamy consistency. If you don't have a food processor (like I didn't up until this past Christmas) simply mash the squash thoroughly - you will thin it out later on in the recipe.

At the same time, cook the chicken sausage in a pan with garlic for 7-9 minutes. Break the sausage apart and cut it up into large chunks as it cooks. As the sausage starts to brown, add a tsp of butter and the finely chopped shallots.

There are a lot of moving parts to this recipe and you want to be boiling the pasta in the same water that you used to boil the squash as the sausage, shallots and garlic cook. Save a cup of the water before draining the pasta as you will need it to thin the squash into a sauce.

Add the squash, spinach and sage to the sausage mixture in the pan. Stir thoroughly and sprinkle some grated parmesan cheese into the sauce. Also add the cup of pasta water that you saved as that will thin the squash into a creamy sauce. Once the sauce is heated through, pour it over the drained pasta and mix everything together.

This is a delicious meal for a cold night and is guaranteed to give you lots of leftovers for lunch and dinner during the week - or at least it did for me. Bon appetit!

How To Make The Perfect, Healthy Fall Meal

Last night I walked into my apartment after work and was immediately met with a delicious aroma wafting from the kitchen. After taking a look at the deliciousness that my roommate was cooking up and knowing that I had to go to the grocery store that evening I decided then and there that I was going to do my best to make the exact same thing for dinner. Yes, I totally copied her.

The best part about this dish? It involves only a few cheap ingredients and little cleanup. Music to my ears. I'm not big on measurements and usually just go off of how hungry I am (usually hungry) but here's what you need:

Kale Greens
Butternut Squash
Potato Gnocchi
Parmesan
Garlic & Crushed Red Pepper Flakes (to taste)

First, peel the butternut squash and chop it up into bite sized chunks. Make sure you have a good knife and peeler for this! Throw it in a saute pan with some olive oil and garlic and brown the squash.

*Be careful working with the squash! I quickly noticed that my fingertips were starting to peel (didn't hurt) and learned here about the sap that they excrete as a self defense mechanism that was causing my crazy reaction. Maybe I'm too sensitive? / Has this happened to you?

Next, add about a cup of water and the kale greens to the pan and let them cook and wilt down. Add as much (or as little) of the greens as you want and some crushed red pepper flakes to taste! Once the kale is cooked down, add the package of gnocchi.

Heat the mixture of squash, kale and gnocchi through and let the remaining water soak into the gnocchi or eventually evaporate. I didn't really keep track of time during this part - just keep an eye on the water level and the gnocchi consistency. You don't want a runny-watery mixture or uncooked gnocchi!

Just keep stirring...just keep stirring...just keep stirring. Add some freshly grated parmesan cheese in as you go so it will melt down and make everything nice and gooey. 

For the finishing touch, scoop everything into an oven safe dish, sprinkle some extra Parmesan on top and put it under the broiler for 5 minutes to let the top crisp up a bit. If you're not too cheap to own/buy a good, cast iron saute pan, I'm jealous....And you can just throw the whole thing under the broiler without using another dish you'll have to wash (sucks to not have a dishwasher).

This dish fills you up, leaves you with leftovers, and did I mention it was easy? Thanks to my roommate for much needed kitchen inspiration!
 

Check out my recipe featured at Weekend Potluck and share with your friends!