Bacon, Butter & Cheesy Pasta

Hard to argue with that.

I was craving something slightly decadent, delicious and filling. Looking on my counter, I saw that I had two huge butternut squash and nostaligically thought about one of my favorite Thanksgiving Day dishes - Thomas Keller’s Sauteed Brussel sprouts and squash with fried sage. Maybe if I just used the squash and added in the decadent parts - butter, bacon and cheese? I did some googling and decided to just go rogue - make it up as i went. The result was exactly what I was looking for - comforting and filling on a cold night in the middle of the quarantine. I questioned whether to post it but I was given a resounding “Yes” by Ben and Alexa so here it goes.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 Butternut Squash - Cut into small squares - about 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch.

3 - 5 Garlic cloves - chopped finely

1- 2 Shallots - chopped finely

note: I use a zyloss chopper - it makes quick work of dicing / chopping items like garlic and shallots.

3-4 strips of Bacon (but make the whole package - they always seem to find a place to be eaten :)

1/2 stick of butter

Virgin Olive Oil

Red pepper chili flakes

Sage - about 8 - 10 leaves. More or less depending on your taste. I noticed that my old sage from last summer had popped up out of the ground out of nowhere and just used about 10 leaves of that.

Kosher Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Parmigiano - grated. For this pasta I used my microplane but you can used already shredded or more coarsely grated. I grated about 3/4 cup just to have.

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

In a large bowl, put all the cut up squash. Drizzle enough olive oil over the first layer - you really don’t need a lot of oil. Salt & pepper. Then toss it in the bowl.

I always use parchment paper to roast - I feel like it makes the clean up just a bit better but you could just put it directly on a cookie sheet or roasting pan.

Spread out the squash on the cookies sheet so it’s single layered. You may need to use 2 cookie sheets or roasting pans.

While the squash is roasting In a large saute or frying pan, cook the bacon until it is nice and crispy.

When that’s done, pour off most of the fat and put the bacon on paper towels.

Melt the butter and then saute the garlic and shallots. When they are starting to brown, , throw in your red chili flakes and let them cook a little. Take the pan off the heat. At this point, you’re kind of just waiting for the squash and the pasta to be done.

Check on your squash - it actually took a lot longer than I’d expected - probably 40 minutes. In the end I wound up broiling it so it would be done.

While you’re waiting, boil you water for the pasta. I always throw in some Kosher salt to boil the pasta with. For this pasta I used Paccheri - it’s a really large tubular pasta but you could use ziti or rigatoni or even macaroni/ elbow shapes. I just wouldn’t recommend a spaghetti style.

When your squash is cooked and is browned nicely so it has been caramelized take it out of the oven. Hopefully your pasta is almost done (or already done at this point). Try to keep it al dente - I usually deduct a few minutes off the cooking time and start tasting. I don’t like mushy pasta!

Drain you pasta but keep a coffee mugs worth of the cooking water. Toss it in your pan, add your squash and coat the pasta, squash with the butter sauce. Sprinkle parmigiano cheese on it and mix - at this point you may want to add some cooking liquid. It makes the sauce creamier and stick to the pasta better. Throw in your sage and crumble up enough bacon so the top of the pasta looks like it has enough. Serve with additional parmigiano cheese and chili flakes on the side.

Chowbella!