It's not quite winter admittedly but I've taken to donning a jacket when I go to work and I make the rules so decided to have a bash at this wintery pasta recipe. We'd also received what was apparently a "pattipan squash" in our veg box and I thought I could substitute that in for the butternut squash. Upon further investigation, the pattipan variety is actually quite different to the butternut equivalent and is in fact more like a courgette, but I'm beyond worrying about such details so decided to press on regardless. To be fair this was another of the notorious "book exclusives" so god only knows how it might turn out.
You start by frying off the veg in the pan (I cubed the squash rather than blitzing as it was more delicate than butternut) and adding stock. It smelled quite good but seemed to more closely resemble soup than pasta sauce. After making the salad (a fairly bog standard lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avocado type jobbie enlivened by some feta cheese and a bit of fresh mint) you blitz the sauce with a hand blender. You mix it with the cooked pasta and parsley and you're done.
It's a dish that takes a bit of getting your head round as it's not a typical pasta and sauce recipe. It's better to think of it as a bowl of soup with some pasta in - much like a minestrone soup for instance. Once I'd come to this conclusion and ditched my knife and fork in favour of a spoon, I enjoyed it much more. With a good grating of parmesan and a hit of salt and pepper it is actually rather pleasant - all the herbs and chilli give it quite a powerful, warm, hearty flavour, although I'm not sure what the chickpeas added to it. The salad was fairly forgettable and would have drowned in the "sauce" had I attempted to put them both in the same bowl.
Lolz gave the dish 7/10. I think she may have given it an extra mark as there wasn't too much washing up. Difficulty rating 2/10.
The pattipan squash:
I would bet that the consistency would have been quite different had you used a butternut squash. I will have to try this one soon, as our weather has turned the corner and we've had frost a few times already.
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