Cake, Batter, and Bowl

Roasted Butternut Squash and Spinach Penne Pasta

Main Dishes

I’ve been looking forward to this week for awhile now, because I get to see my good friend Susie not once, but twice, in two different cities! Susie is one of my best friends from college. We initially bonded as partners in organic chemistry lab, where we amused ourselves (and horrified our TA) by bringing in a CD player and dancing along to Salt-N-Pepa in the middle of lab. She’s been my favorite person to hit the dance floor with ever since! Her hubby Brian had business in Boston earlier this week and she tagged along, so we got to have dinner with them at Giacomo’s in the North End, and then Susie and I had lunch the next day and she checked out our lab. And, to top things off, we’re both going to a wedding this weekend in Chicago, where we still can’t wait to hit the dance floor, 10 years later!

We usually don’t gravitate towards Italian restaurants, since I can cook many Italian favorites decently at home, but Giacomo’s specializes in seafood and everything there is unique and incredible! They don’t take reservations, so you have to wait in line, but it’s so worth it – I always have to stop myself from licking the plate! One of my favorite dishes is an addicting butternut squash ravioli served with a mascarpone cream sauce and asparagus. I was really inspired by the butternut squash and pasta pairing, but wanted to lighten things up a bit, so I made a sauce of roasted butternut squash, spinach, buttermilk, and rosemary, and then tossed it with whole wheat pasta. Mmmm, this was a great way to enjoy butternut squash!

Roasted Butternut Squash and Spinach Penne Pasta
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 butternut squash, cut in half lengthwise and seeded
1 pound whole wheat penne pasta
1 cup chopped shallots
1 clove garlic, minced
1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400˚F. Use a pastry brush to evenly brush flesh side of the squash halves with 1 teaspoon olive oil and place flesh side down on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 400˚F for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until tender. Let squash cool for 10 minutes. Remove flesh from the squash halves with a spoon and mash with a fork until smooth (my yield was 2 cups).

Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain the pasta in a colander, return it to the pot, and keep warm.

Heat remaining 2 teaspoons olive oil in a large skillet and cook shallots for 5 to 7 minutes or until tender. Add garlic and cook 1 additional minute. Add spinach and roasted mashed butternut squash to the pan. Stir in buttermilk, milk, rosemary, and salt and stir until smooth, about 2 minutes. Mix pasta and sauce until the sauce evenly coats all the ingredients. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over each serving. Makes 6 servings.

Nutrition: 403 calories, 6.8g fat, 12.6g fiber, 19.1g protein per serving
Cost: $1.05 per serving

Mushroom Walnut Pesto Pasta

Apolinaras went to Costco while I was on my baking adventure and brought home a fun present - a huge canister of dried gourmet mushrooms! The blend contained a mix of porcini, morels, Brazilian, Ivory portabellas, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms, and I immediately knew...

Avocado Ranch Israeli Couscous Salad

I’m not a huge main dish salad fan. It seems like whenever I just have greens with veggies and protein for lunch, I end up with a grumbling tummy only a couple hours later. My outlook recently changed after a lab potluck though. Sima brought in a lovely spinach salad...

Pear Glazed Salmon with a Potato, Parsnip, and Bacon Hash

Some foods are so versatile that they are perfect for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Bacon is definitely one of these ingredients, but I just realized that hash browns also fall into this category. Shreds of crispy golden brown fried potatoes just make everything...

Yuzu Miso Mahi Mahi

I recently swooned over a delicious yuzu miso sauce served with one of the tuna rolls at our local sushi joint and decided something similar must be incorporated into my next fish dish - never mind the fact that I didn’t even know what yuzu was or where to find it!...

Halloween Pumpkin Quesadillas

I apparently have a bit more Martha in me than I’ve previously appreciated because when I stumbled upon some habanero lime flour tortillas at Trader Joe’s the other night, my eyes got wide with excitement and I squealed, “they’re orange, they have bright orange...

Plantain Gnocchi/Koldunai Stuffed with Cheddar Cheese

So I finally got around to making plantain gnocchi again, but was so tired that I didn’t even make a sauce to go with them and just ended up topping them with some fresh tomatoes. They were still delicious though, mainly because they were stuffed with chunks of...

Creamy Lemon Summer Squash Pasta

So it’s official – I’m a triathlete! I finished my first sprint triathlon at the Cranberry Trifest yesterday. The race was a 0.5 mile pond swim, followed by a 11.5 mile bike ride, and 3.1 mile run. My official time was 1:28:00, which put me in the top fourth of my age...

Champagne Salmon with Swiss Chard Quinoa

I was super excited when my good friend Eva asked if we would like to use her family’s farm share while they visit her parents in Austria for the next few weeks. Eva is inspirational because she works full time as a pulmonary pediatrician and is raising the two...