Pasta with Butternut Squash in Alfredo

First: YUM. I love squash. Squashie squash squash. Squash in my mouth. Down into my belly. Nom nom nom.

I foresee plenty of you non squashers to be wrinkling your noses right now. Don't. I repeat: DON'T! I've found butternut squash to be the most squash hater-friendly of all squashes, shorty followed by spaghetti squash, which you can sneak into lasanga and nobody will be the wiser. Butternut squash is extremely sweet, but it's a mellow, nice sweet. Tasty sweet. Tasty, period. You can doctor it up a thousand different ways, either ignoring the sweet back flavor and going for herbal or salty, or you can coat it with honey and coconut oil and brown sugar and go to town that way. It's just damn delicious.

Alright, enough. Here's the recipe:

Pasta w/ Butternut Squash in [Cheater's Beschamel] Alfredo

Difficulty: Moderately easy

Prepping time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

***

1 butternut squash

EVOO

Salt

Pepper

Pasta

2 cups heavy cream or whole milk

2 egg yolk in cereal bowl

1 cup Italian Blend shredded cheese (the kind in the bag)

2 or 3 tbsp of cream cheese, softened

1 tsp minced garlic

Salt

Pepper

5 tbsp Butter/margarine

Pinch of nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400. Cut the squash crossways, then cut each half lengthwise. Scoop out the middle flesh. Chop into chunks approximately 1 x 1 inches (about the size you do cantelope). Leave the skin on. Place in oiled shallow glass baking dish, skin side down, and pour generous amount of EVOO atop the pieces. Salt and pepper. Bake at 400 for 40 minutes, or until the squash is a little softer and a little more golden brown.

Meanwhile....

Cook your pasta according to package directions.

Sit the cream cheese on the stove (on a piece of foil or something) so it can get nice and soft. In another sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat and saute the garlic just a bit. Add cream/milk, stir constantly and keep it from scorching. Slowly add in the shredded cheeses, still stirring; then add in cream cheese. Stir constantly. In other hand, use fork to to whip the yolks a little, still in its own bowl. Sitr cheese sauce constantly. When cheese sauce is entirely melted and mixed together, SLOWLY pour one ladle's worth of sauce into the yolk bowl. Sitr cheese sauce constantly with main hand. Whip yolk bowl sauce gently with fork. Stir main sauce constantly. Then SLOWLY pour that bowl back into the main cheese sauce. Stir. Simmer over med-low, stirring frequently (as needed, really) for 5 minutes. Add nutmeg, salt, pepper and stir. Remove from heat.

When squash is cooked, remove from oven and allow to cool. Flip peices, peel off the skin and it's ready to eat. You can either chop the pieces smaller and toss with the cheater's beschamel/alfredo sauce, or you can leave it big-ish and serve on top.

Ta da! Serves 4. (There will be plenty of extra squash.)