Fiorentini with Butternut Squash

Friday I started making chicken broth cleaning out the freezer of chicken parts and vegetable trimmings.  During this process I found something straight out of a George Carlin’s Icebox Man routine, “Is it meat or is it cake?”  Honestly I could not tell.  So I decided to thaw the unidentifiable product.  It ended up being the remains of a beef roast that I made back in February.  I had planned on making a vegetarian pasta dish, so I decided to slice this up to make Jim happier.  I proceeded with dinner and my broth.  I really do not follow a recipe when I made broth.  Usually I just freeze all the trimmings from vegetables and then make vegetable broth, but this time I had about 5# of trimmings from whole chickens that I had cut up to make a dinner where I only wanted legs/thigh, breast pieces.  I looked in the Barefoot Contessa book and to my veggies and chicken pieces added peppercorns, thyme and dill.  I did not add salt or garlic.  I thought this would interfere with dishes I make.  Even the best of the chicken stocks, are salty to me.  I brought it to a simmer on the stove and cooked it all day and night on low.  I should think about using a Crockpot for this from now on.  Then I went about making this absolutely delicious pasta dish from the February Bon Appétit.

Ingredients:      

2 T EVOO

2 T unsalted butter

5 C butternut squash grated (use the grating attachment on your food processor)

¼ C thinly sliced fresh sage

1 # pasta (I used whole wheat macaroni)

Kosher salt

½ C finely grated Parmesan

Directions:

1.       Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. 

2.       Heat EVOO and butter in a large heavy pot over medium heat.  Add squash and sage and cook, stirring occasionally, until squash begins to brown, about 10 minutes.  (Recipe says 2, mine took longer.)

3.       As you start the squash cooking, add the pasta to the pot.  My squash took as long to brown as the pasta to cook.  Drain the pasta reserving the water.

4.       Add the pasta and ½ C pasta cooking liquid to the squash.  Cook over medium heat, stirring, adding more cooking liquid as needed to coat the sauce.  I used 2cups.

5.       Stir in ½ C parmesan cheese and provide more for topping each serving. 

This dish serves 6 and we have about ½ leftover as I also served the “found” beef.  I should add that fiorentini is a short curled pasta.  I live in the south and am lucky to find pasta.