Day 7: Squash and Garlic Pasta

Last night it finally happened.  I got sick of pumpkin.  Maybe I’m just sick of making myself dinner.  There are few squash short cuts since it’s such a seasonal meal.  Nothing I thought about making sounded good or appealing and squash takes a while to cook so I was meh and disheartened.  But alas, I triumphed and made a pasta dish based off of one from Locavore Girl in the City.

Ingredients:
(1) acorn squash
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
grapeseed oil
1/2 lb green beans
crushed red pepper flakes
cumin
salt
pepper
balsamic vinegar
nutmeg
1/2 box pasta (I used tricolor rotini)
parmesan cheese

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400.  Cut squash in half, put face down into a baking pan with about 1/4 inch of water.  Bake squash for 40 minutes.
2. When there is about 10 minutes left on the squash, start boiling water.  Add pasta once boiling.
3. Add about 1 – 2 tbsps grapeseed oil into a frying pan.  When hot, sautee garlic and oil.  When the onions start to soften, add spices (you can swap those out with whatever you’d like.  And we know I don’t measure spices, so … sorry).  I liked the spice from the red pepper and the nutmeg brings out a lot of the squash flavor.  Add green beans and continue sauteeing.
4. When squash is done let cool before scooping out insides.  I score cubes into the squash and then scooped out the cubes.  Add squash into the frying pan and sautee about 2 minutes.
5. Add pasta to frying pan just to get the pasta warm since it’s already cooked.  Top with balsamic vinegar to taste.  Top with parmesan cheese

I was meh about the meal.  It was good, not great, but I wasn’t in the mood for it.  And I don’t think I like the consistency of acorn squash, so maybe it needed to cook a little longer or maybe I just should’ve used a different type of squash.  Too bad, because this is also lunch today.  I thought about sauteeing the onions and garlic in butter instead of oil, and maybe that would have been better with the squash.  Some rosemary, thyme, or sage also would have helped.  Not a fail, just a work in progress.