This is super easy to make and looks extra fancy. It’s ingredients are cheap but still gourmet. You just need a couple of vegetable and some pantry staples. Apart from baking the pumpkin, which gives it a lovely caramel flavour over a time period of 45 minutes, the rest takes 20 minutes tops and it’s well worth the effort.
This is super easy to make and looks extra fancy. It’s ingredients are cheap but still gourmet. You just need a couple of vegetable and some pantry staples. Apart from baking the pumpkin, which gives it a lovely caramel flavour over a time period of 45 minutes, the rest takes 20 minutes tops and it’s well worth the effort.
Ingredients:
- 1 butternut pumpkin
- Salt, pepper and olive oil.
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 tb unsalted butter and another 1/4 cup butter
- Milk
- Any cheese you have on hand. I use Parmesan but anything goes.
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup fresh or frozen shredded spinach
- 1/2 lemon
- Fresh or dried pasta
- Semi-dried tomatoes and pine nuts to garnish
Preheat your oven to 180 degree Celsius (350 Fahrenheit). Cut your pumpkin into even pieces.
Toss the pumpkin in a baking tray with salt, pepper and olive oil.
Check on your pumpkin in 45 mins. If you can easily pierce it with a fork, it’s done. Set aside.
Mince three cloves of garlic. Melt butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Add garlic, sizzle and stir for half a minute.
Add the frozen or fresh spinach and stir until wilted. Add a couple of squeezes of lemon. Set aside, separate from the pumpkin.
Bring at least a liter of water to the boil. Add a pinch of salt and the pasta. I used my big pot the night before to make chicken soup and it was still in the fridge, hosting the leftovers. Whoops. So, I cooked my pasta in a wok. Should have been a Girls’ Scout with resourcefulness like that.
Measure out your 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup butter. You need to be real specific about this. We’re making a roux, which is harder to pronounce than do.
Completely melt your butter then add the flour and mix furiously with a wooden spoon.
Keep mixing until it turns slightly brown and smells like nutmeg. Check on the pasta, making sure it’s just done, drain when it’s cooked.
Add roughly a cup of milk to the roux and using a whisk, stir furiously until lumps are gone. Add the spinach mixture and a handful of cheese. You should have a slightly runny consistency, like thick cream. If not, add more milk and whisk, baby, whisk. Take the white sauce off the heat.
Gently mix the spinach white sauce and pasta in a pan. Bung it into a bowl, sprinkle pumpkin and pine nuts on top. Be careful when mixing the pumpkin because it can break easily. Season with salt and pepper.Yummy and even a little bit healthy. Enjoy!
What do you put into your pasta?
3 Comments so far
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Gorgeous photos! I’m a sucker for the age old butter and cheese combo a top my pasta. It’s not even vaguely good for you and it kind of gives me a stomach ache, but I love it so hard!
By sarah von on 12.16.08 11:55 am | Permalink
Thanks Sarah!
I make something similar, stole it from Jamie Oliver. You mince and sautee some garlic in butter then mix it with the cooked pasta and sprinkle salt and pepper over it. Hmmm…stomach cramps.
By Tash on 12.19.08 9:43 am | Permalink
DUUUUDE. I am so making this next week.
By Gem on 01.25.09 10:12 pm | Permalink
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