Simple Pumpkin Pasta Sauce

This is a sauce for pasta we make often in the fall and winter months. We usually have an abundance of pumpkins from my in-law’s garden.

Ingredients

600g of Fresh Pumpkin or Butternut Squash

50g of Olive Oil

2 cloves of garlic, minced

30 g of walnuts, chopped

Dash of nutmeg

Salt to taste

Red chili peppers flakes to taste

Parmesan Cheese

Short pasta (we used whole wheat fusili)

Cut the pumpkin or squash into cubes around 1 cm. Heat olive oil in a pan, when warm, add pumpkin and garlic. Season with salt. Stir and cover with a lid for 20-25 minutes until pumpkin is soft. Meanwhile, boil salted water and cook pasta according to the package. Crush or chop the walnuts and toast over low heat in a small pan until fragrant. When the pumpkin is ready, take an immersion blender and blend the pumpkin until smooth and creamy (there should be some water in the pan from the cooked pumpkin). Add cooked pasta to the pumpkin cream, mix to cover all the pasta until the pasta has taken on the color of the sauce.

Serve topped with crushed walnuts, top with Parmesan and red pepper flakes to taste.