Easy Summer Dinner: Pasta With Butternut Squash and Pesto

I should’ve been packing for West Texas but there was this small matter of dinner. So I whipped up another batch of the absolute best pasta dish ever, with the idea that I was saving time by also making lunch for the long drive to Davis Mountain Fitness and Training Camp. I’d break up the day in the car with a nice outdoor lunch at the iconic Wagon Wheel rest area in Sonora, TX.

Roasted Butternut = Veggie Candy

The original recipe comes from one of my go-to cookbooks, The Clean-Eating Kitchen: Clean, Simple, and Organic Recipes by Parragon Books.

Tagliatelle with Roasted Squash and Walnut Pesto (pg. 64) quickly became a family favorite. What I particularly love is the sweet roasted butternut squash, which is so simple to prepare.

• Peel the squash and remove the seeds.
• Chop into small, uniform cubes.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Spread the cubes in a single layer.
• Toss with olive oil.
• Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Bake at 400 degrees F for about 25 minutes.

Sheer heaven. The danger lies in whether I eat too much while waiting for it to cool.

Good Gluten Free Pasta

I’ve substituted Ancient Harvest’s organic corn and quinoa blend linguine for the whole-wheat tagliatelle to make the recipe gluten free. I have no idea how the original tastes, but the substituted 8-ounce box of linguine is quite good. This brand has a nice texture — not mushy at all. It cooks up quickly, in about 9 minutes.

Fabulous Summer Pesto

The tagliatelle instructions include a pesto, but I changed that, too. The original recipe calls for a delicious walnut pesto (walnuts, olive oil, fresh basil, Parmesan cheese). But I’d recently made Eggplant, Tomato, and Mozzarella Stacks from my new cookbook love, The Vegetable Butcher: How to Select, Prep, Slice, Dice, and Masterfully Cook Vegetables from Artichokes to Zucchini by Cara Mangini. The stacks have a dollop of Basil-Walnut Pesto (pg.180) between the eggplant and mozzarella slices. There’s little variation—I suspect all basil-walnut pestos are quite similar — just the addition of garlic and an option to include mint.

I’d wanted to double the recipe but was short on basil, so that suggested mint filled out the 3 cups of herbs needed. Mmmmm. With my pesto ready and waiting in the refrigerator, tonight’s pasta preparation was a breeze.

Getting a Few Greens, Too

All I had to do was mix the roasted squash, pesto, and linguine together (I added a bit more olive oil so the pesto would relax and bind better with the other ingredients). Salt and pepper to taste. The final touch: a sprinkling of fresh arugula on top for some crispy greens, a complimentary bitter bite to the candy-sweet squash.

A nice glass of white wine completed this easy, flavorful, and lovely summer meal.

Aaah.

I’m looking forward to that lunch of leftovers.