Dinner Candy

The Boston Red Sox are World Series Champions, again. I have much to be grateful for. Like the Sox beating the Rockies, and also, not having children. Because if I did have children, they would inevitably be referring to this as my squash period and would spend much of their adolescence recounting tales of how mom made them eat all this disgusting squash and swearing they'd never eat it again. I wouldn't know anything personally about the extent of emotional scarring that can occur due to overexposing children to something like maybe zucchini or classical music, but I've heard it can get ugly. Thankfully, I have nothing to worry about. I can wallow in the glory of my favorite team being the best in baseball while eating what basically amounts to dessert as dinner: Fresh Fettucini with Roast Butternut Squash and Brown Butter and Sage. I adapted this recipe from one in Donna Hay's Off the Shelf Cookbook, because as it turns out, finding a pumpkin to cook is a lot harder than you think. I went in search of a "pie pumpkin" which are supposedly little and tasty. I got a lot of weird looks, and also helpfully informed by one supermarket employee that he was pretty sure that some of the pumpkins out front didn't have faces already painted on them. He then offered me canned pumpkin puree, which as you might guess, isn't my top choice for cutting into cubes. Fortunately, the recipe is pretty darn good (if not crazy sweet) with the squash.

FRESH FETTUCINE WITH ROAST BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND BROWN BUTTER AND SAGE
Ingredients:
1/2 lb fresh fettucine
1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed (.5 inch cubes maybe? a titch smaller?)
3-4 T butter
fresh sage leaves (maybe 6-8 leaves - stems cut off)
.5 cup grated parm
olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions:
Spread the cubed, peeled squash on a baking sheet, toss with olive oil and salt and pepper. Cook at 400 for 30 minutes, or until a fork goes in easily. When the squash is almost done, boil the pasta water, and cook the pasta according to the package. Add the butter and sage to a skillet, heat at medium until the butter is a rich brown color. Drain pasta, top with squash and parm then pour the butter and sage over top.