Roasted Pumpkin Sauce with Fettuccine

Pumpkin sauce pasta

This is one of my all time favourite pasta sauces and dinners. So easy and tasty. The best part about it is that you can add to the sauce. Next time I might add some fried bacon and pine nuts, even pesto. You can even use the sauce to stuff portobello mushrooms. The recipe was adapted from the Family Circle Quick Pasta Cookbook and originally says to use pappardelle pasta but I couldn't find any so used regular fettucine. The recipe also says to use butternut pumpkin but as I live in Thailand it was a lot cheaper for me to use chinese pumpkin and it still tasted great. I cooked the whole packet of pasta and it served 2 adults and 3 toddler serves.

Bake for 30mins

Here's what you need:
1 packet of pasta (papperdelle recommended)
1.4kg pumpkin, deseeded, cut in 2cm chunks
4 garlic cloves, crushed
100ml olive oil
3 tablespoons thyme leaves
salt to season
3/4 cup hot stock (vegetable or chicken)
2 tablespoons cream
Parmesan, grated to season at end

Here's what you do:
Preheat your oven to 200C and place water in a pan for the pasta and bring to the boil. Cut your pumpkin into 2cm chunks with the skin and seeds removed. Place in a baking tray and coat with the crushed garlic, thyme leaves and 60ml of the olive oil. Season with salt and place in the oven for 30mins. Place the pasta in the salted, boiling water and cook for about 12mins. When cooked, drain and pour the remaining 40ml of olive oil through the pasta. Keep the pasta warm.

Take the pumpkin out of the oven and place all contents of the baking tray in a Magimix or other food processor. Add the hot stock and cream and mix together. Pour the sauce over the pasta and stir through. That's it! Serve topped with parmesan cheese and thyme leaves if you want. Enjoy!