CREAMY PUMPKIN & SAUSAGE PASTA BAKE
Whenever something is in season on The Farm, we often find ourselves eating a LOT of it. Possibly too much. For example: I haven’t touched a zucchini flower since the beginning of 2019 thanks to some overly enthusiastic zucchini plants that year, and after the zucchini flowers came what seemed like hundreds of zucchinis. It was three months of zucchini in everything from bread to pasta to soup and roasts. If you think the word “zucchini” appeared too many times in this paragraph, imagine what it felt like to have it appear a hundred times more on your dinner plate. Basically, once something starts booming in the garden, you need to get real creative, real quick, unless you’re a big fan of monotony.
After making it through something like 45 pumpkins this year, there was one solitary pumpkin left in the pantry that needed using. Especially after the rabbits broke in there and helped themselves to a pumpkin-flavoured treat. Once the skin is broken, it’s only a matter of a couple of days before mould will start to set in. But I really didn’t want to revisit previous pumpkin recipes - there are only so many different types of pumpkin soup and roast pumpkin you can eat. This was another opportunity to experiment a little and maybe use up some other overly abundant ingredients from the garden.
Case in point: silverbeet (otherwise know as chard.) The silverbeet is literally growing everywhere on The Farm. In fact, it’s so prolific that it has somehow popped up in of one of the flower gardens, 100 metres from the vegetable garden.
One of these things is not like the others.
A cursory look around the herb garden reminded me that the sage was also booming, and having already eaten browned-butter sage pasta three times in two weeks I thought it prudent to maybe not eat a pound of butter for a third week in a row. That didn’t mean I didn’t want to. By then, pasta was all I could think about, so I decided to try and make some kind of pumpkin-y pasta bake.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that what makes a pasta bake delicious has mostly to do with texture. If it isn’t thick, oozy, creamy, cheesy, or saucy, it isn’t great. If it’s even remotely dry, it isn’t great. Ever had a dry-ish lasagna, where the sauce is so sparse that the meat is a little crumbly and you actually need to drink something to wash it down? Highly unpleasant and not at all comforting, as pasta should be. While we’re on the subject, let me say also that the importance of texture is not reserved for pasta only. Texture is a ubiquitous feature of all foods, and so it is as important, if not more so in some cases, as flavour. Food needs to taste good, but it also needs to feel good. Who enjoys eating a mushy apple, or tough, leathery meat, or a dense croissant? Undercooked or overcooked pasta is just criminal - the wrong texture can very easily ruin the experience of an otherwise delicious meal. So again, I urge you: before serving up, taste your food! Not just for the flavour, but to make sure the texture is right.
My philosophy on getting the texture right for this pasta bake was basically this: lots of cream, lots of cheese. Simple philosophies are best. And they work, too. Because what I pulled out of my oven was a rich, creamy, cheesy, oozy, savoury and all-round heavily satisfying pasta bake. I did add a bit of Italian sausage to it, but it would be just as delicious without it. A lot of pumpkin pasta recipes I saw online used tinned pumpkin purée which is definitely easier to deal with, but a) my last pumpkin was begging to be used and b) both the texture and flavour of mashed roasted pumpkin are heartier than the tinned version. It’s an efficient, flexible recipe: you can experiment with different cheese, different meats (or no meat), vary the type of pasta and even herbs if you wanted. I love recipes that aren’t set in stone and lend themselves to a bit of freewheeling interpretation. These types of experiments often lead to happy accidents and the discovery of a new recipe that soon become household favourites. Sometimes you experiment out of curiosity, sometimes out of necessity. But every time, you learn something new. For example: I learned that not eating a pound of butter a week is the best decision I’ve made in recent months, and The Roommate learned that being sceptical about “experimental recipes” is regrettable when the result is a pasta bake you can’t get enough of.
Ingredients:
Extra-virgin olive oil, as needed
500g penne/rotini/macaroni/rigatoni/other similar pasta
1kg pumpkin/squash, chopped into chunks
500g Italian sausage (optional), casings removed
2 brown onions, diced
1 whole bulb garlic, minced
1 large bunch silverbeet/chard (or spinach), thick stems removed, leaves sliced
1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese (1/2 cup reserved for topping)
1 1/2 cups freshly grated Gruyère cheese
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1 large bunch sage, roughly chopped or torn
Salt & pepper to taste
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200C (400F). Line a baking tray with foil/baking paper. Drizzle pumpkin with olive oil, salt and pepper, then bake for 20-30 minutes until soft and a little brown.
2. Remove the pumpkin from the oven and transfer to a large mixing bowl. Keep the oven at 200C. Using a masher or a fork, mash the pumpkin until smooth - don’t worry if there are a few small pieces here and there, it will all cook down later in the oven. Season with additional salt and pepper if necessary. Set aside.
3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to boil. Salt generously, then cook pasta until just al dente (it will cook more in the oven). Drain and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil, toss to coat. Set aside.
4. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Cook the sausage, breaking it up into small pieces as you go, until nicely browned all over. Remove with a slotted spoon (leave the fat in pot!) and set aside.
5. Add the onions to the pot and cook, stirring often, until golden, about 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Throw in the silverbeet and stir until very wilted. Add the sausage back to the pot and mix everything together. Turn the heat down to medium, then pour in the wine. Stir and make sure to scrap the bottom of the pot to loosen up any browned bits, then let the wine cook off until only a little liquid is left.
6. Add the pumpkin, cream, cheeses (saving 1/2 cup of the Parmesan for later) and sage to the pot and mix everything together. Cook until it starts to bubble, then let simmer for about 5 minutes. Add the cooked pasta and mix everything together. Pour everything into a 9” x 13” baking pan and cover in aluminium foil. Bake for about 15 minutes until everything is bubbling. After 15 minutes, remove the foil and top with remaining Parmesan cheese. Return to the oven and bake, uncovered until the surface is nicely browned and bubbling. Let cool for about 10 minutes before serving.