Goats Cheese, Butternut Squash and Red Pepper Pasta

A quick fix-it lunch for Meat Free Monday today. There is a wonderful array of winter squash in the supermarkets and on the allotments at the moment, and so I decided to take full advantage of this and add yet another autumnal butternut squash recipe to the blog.

I made this delicious Goats Cheese, Butternut Squash and Red Pepper Pasta recently as a quick fix for lunch. I love the colours of food, and as creamy pasta makes quite a bland canvas, I decided to brighten it up with some wonderful oranges and reds to celebrate the season, and also added some basil leaves for even more colour and flavour.

I find that people sometimes get so bogged down in tomato bases for pasta sauce, that they forget there is a whole array of cheese which can be mixed with pasta to provide a creamy sauce with a full bodied flavour. When mixing in my goats cheese to the pasta, I reserved some of the cooked pasta water to help the goats cheese form a creamy sauce - just enough to help the cheese stick to the pasta.

I hope you enjoy this dish, and Happy Meat Free Monday!

Goats Cheese, Butternut Squash and Red Pepper Pasta

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Ingredients:

500g Pasta 
500g Butternut Squash, cubed
1 Red Pepper, chopped into small pieces
200g Goats Cheese, cut into smallish pieces
Salt & Pepper to taste
Olive Oil
Basil Leaves for decorating

Directions:

• Heat the oven to 200 degrees. Place the Butternut Squash and Pepper into a roasting tray, cat I a little olive oil, and cook for around thirty minutes. 
• Cook the pasta as per the packet instructions, in water with a little oil added to prevent sticking.
• Once cooked, drain the pasta, reserving a little of the hot water.7Mix the Pasta together in a bowl with the goats cheese. Add a little water to help the goats cheese to form a sticky paste.
• Once the squash and pepper have cooked, drain them of their oil, and combine with the pasta.
• Add basil, salt and pepper as desired, and serve immediately.