Butternut pasta

This is actually kind of like a vegan Mac and Cheese...I'm not vegan but these ingredients together are perfect and theres literally no need for.any meat or animal products in this dish. If you want to sprinkle it with bacon, by all means go ahead, bacon goes with everything haha!

Drizzling crispy sage in butter on top would be ideal, and I would have done that (making this not vegan!) but I didn't have any sage. If you have it, definitely do it, I'll add it to the recipe anyway because that's what I'd otherwise do.

Prep time: 10 mins

Cooking time: 40 mins

Serves: 2

Ingredients

1kg butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed

2 large cloves of garlic, whole with skin on

1 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp salt

1 onion, chopped

1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup vegetable stock

1/4 cup almond milk

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

180g pasta of your choice

Method

1. Peel your squash, deseed it, and cut it up into cubes.

2. Place it into a bowl and mix it with the salt, pepper, thyme, garlic and 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

3. Once well mixed, put it all in the air fryer and set to 180 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes, shaking or turning the pumpkin pieces every 10 minutes.

4. While the pumpkin is cooking, sautée the onions in the remaining olive oil until translucent. Feel free to add a pinch of thyme and salt here too. Once tender turn off the fire, but leave the saucepan on the stove.

5. Once the pumpkin is cooked, add it to the saucepan with the onion, and turn on the heat again, to medium.

6. Add the stock, milk, nutritional yeast and a pinch of black pepper (optional).

7. Once everything is combined, and the liquid has thickened, remove all the ingredients and pour into a bowl.

8. Use the immersion blender to blend it all together. If its a bit thick, like a paste, dont worry, this is fine.

9. Cook pasta in salted water as per instructions, reserving a cup of the pasta water.

10. Place 1/2 cup of the pumpkin puree into a saucepan, add the pasta, as well as the pasta water, combining until smooth.

11. Serve hot.

12. If you are planning to add the crispy sage, while the pasta is cooking, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a separate pan with fresh sage and let the butter brown a bit while the sage crisps up. Drizzle on top of the pasta.

Notes

• I used almond milk because I cant drink cows milk, but both work fine.

• If you don't have nutritional yeast, use 1/4 good quality parmesan cheese, and finely grate it in. I didn't have any good quality parmesan which is why I used the nutritional yeast.

• For more depth of flavor you can add smoked paprika to the onions as they cook, about a teaspoon.

• Dont throw away the pumpkin seeds, you can roast them later and have them as a snack!