Food and Wine Pasta with Roasted Squash, Sausage and Pecans

Pasta recipes always grab my attention. I read through a ton of magazines every month looking for new recipes to try. I glance over any recipe with impossible to find ingredients or a flavor that I know that someone in my family refuses to eat. Then I look through the remaining and pull out all the recipes for my recipe file (which funny story is now in an old suitcase). I have a ton of pasta recipes in my pile of magazine recipes to try in the future. I can always be guaranteed that my children will at least try a pasta recipe, which is more than I can say for other recipes. I normally make pasta at least once a week, so I try to vary the vegetables and meats that I use. The February issue of Food and Wine Magazine had a recipe for Pasta with Roasted Squash, Sausage and Pecans, which looked easy and a perfect way to use winter squash.

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It takes 50 minutes to prepare and cook, 30 minutes of which is active and makes 6 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store. I did find that my sage didn't work exactly as the recipe stated. When I added my sage to the butter, it only got partially crisp, which was fine since it was for flavor and none of us would have actually eaten the sage leaves. Be careful when roasting the butternut squash or it will burn. I stirred my squash twice during the cooking time to prevent sticking and burning. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

The flavor on this dish is mild. The only flavor comes from the sage and the butternut squash. It is a good basic, pasta dish, but it would benefit from either using hot Italian sausage or adding red pepper flakes. My two boys liked the mild flavor and ate their entire serving. My husband and I added red pepper flakes, which we both thought added a nice flavor to the dish.

For the recipe go to Pasta with Roasted Squash, Sausage and Pecans.