Hi friends! How are you? I’m sitting on a bathroom floor in a village of 300 people in burgundy france. Marlowe is taking a bath. Alex is doing laundry. And then I’m going to pack it all up. We leave for Nepal tomorrow. Which is crazy. Even Marlowe is amazed at how fast this trip is flying by.

But before we head out, I wanted to leave you guys with another post! A well asked for recipe around here. We love this pasta dish. It’s insanely easy to make and relatively healthy too. We opt for gluten-free pasta now that I’m well, you know, gluten-free haha. But we find that if you use a good quality one, it cooks up just the same. (Maybe better).

We just use a bit of butternut squash to make it really creamy and a bit sweeter too. But you can add in even more veggies too. I mean, don’t go completely crazy, but an addition of carrot or other root vegetable (not beets) might be great. Even some fresh spinach added in for an extra kick of green. Whatever you’d like! And seriously its beyond easy.

Also I should note that this feeds a decent amount of people, we’d probably do a half amount if cooking for just the three of us. Also, I think you guys know, but I stopped using oils at home. So this recipe is oil free. But if you absolutely love oil or abide by a high fat diet, by all means, sauté everything in olive oil first. I wont be offended, promise 😉 But I really find that something like this doesn’t need that extra fat to be delicious 🙂

Creamy Butternut And Tomato Pasta

You’ll Need:
-24 ounces of pasta (about two boxes of your favorite dried pasta. we use gluten free brown rice pasta)
-24 ounces tomato puree (crushed or whole peeled works too)
-1 small butternut squash
-1 small onion
-5 cloves garlic
-1 handful fresh basil to pot
-1 teaspoon chili flake (optional)
-24 ounces of water (approximately)
-handful of fresh basil
-Salt and pepper to taste
-optional toppings: bread crumbs / nutritional yeast / extra herbs

How To:
-Set oven to 350F
-Peel, de-seed, and cube your butternut squash. They can be bigger cubes, no need to worry about tiny perfect cubes, it will all get blended anyway.
-Dice up your onion.
-Chop up your garlic.
-Place a large pot on medium heat. Once hot because sauté your onions. Adding a touch of water if necessary. Add in garlic and sauté for another 30 seconds/minute. Add chili flake if using.
-Add tomato puree/ sauce.
-Add water.
-Add cubed butternut squash to the pot and give a stir around.
-Add Basil to pot.
-Season with salt and pepper.
-Bring to a boil cover and reduce the heat to simmer. Cook for 25 approximately minutes until squash is tender.
-Boil water and cook pasta to just under box directions. You want the box to be very al dente. For example our pasta box recommended 11 minutes cooking directions. We cook our pasta for 8 minutes for this recipe. Once the pasta is cooked, rinse under cold water to stop cooking.
-Blend sauce smooth. Remember to reserve some of the liquid before blending to adjust the texture. You do not want watery sauce.
-In a baking dish or caserole pan, fill the bottom with a layer of sauce. Then add half the pasta. Top with more sauce. Add remaining pasta. Cover with sauce. You want the dish to be a little extra saucy at this point because a lot of it will bake into the noodles.
-Cover the dish with lid or aluminum foil.
-Bake for 20 minutes.
-You can add a sprinkle of bread crumbs or nutritional yeast here if you’d like.
-Remove cover and broil until top is blistered and crunchy.
-Dig in.

You want the consistency  of the sauce to be similar to a thick creamy soup.

We sprinkled in a touch of nutritional yeast in the in-between layer too. Totally optional.
Place in oven and bake bake bake. 
And look at this deliciousness! Honestly, the photo doesn’t do it justice. But the light in my moms winter kitchen is not our friend. So just look at this and imagine it looking even better! And voila! Amazing easy dinner recipe for you, your friends, or your family! We like to pair this with a yummy salad and enjoy!

Cheers friends! I hope your week is going well! Stay warm!

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