Hope you are doing well and if you celebrated Thanksgiving this year, you enjoyed your time off with family and friends. While I have a plan to pump out some Xmas-worthy recipes very soon, today’s one is a simple plate of comfort food that is ideal weekend or midweek fare featuring some of my favourite winter flavours. If you’ve followed me for a while you might have noticed that I am a massive pasta lover and that’s something I would struggle to live without.
Pastas of all kinds and shapes (and that includes Asian noodles and Polish pierogi) are my favourite comfort foods. I know that some low-carbers have a bee in their bonnet about pasta being unhealthy but I am of the opinion that it really depends of what goes with it and how much variety there is in your diet in general. I’m naturally quite oil averse so I’m fairly stingy with olive oil and I love vegetables so they are always prominent. I don’t eat pasta every day, but there are weeks where I will have it 3 times a week and my body seems happy with that. This pasta combines some of my favourite flavours – pumpkin, miso, lots of garlic (some roasted and some sautéed) and a touch of lemon. It may look complicated but it’s really quite simple to make. While the pumpkin is getting roasted and caramelised in the oven, there is enough time to cook the pasta and make the sauce, including roasting your pecans. I like that as I always multitask in the kitchen and hate standing around waiting for stuff to finish off cooking, so if I can get on with something else in the meantime, that’s what I will do. Hope you’ll enjoy this simple meal as much as we do.
*SAGE: I used fried sage for decoration mainly, but if you are a fan, fry a few leaves in step 6, ahead of sautéeing the garlic. Once fried, fish it out and place on a paper towel to crisp up. Sauté garlic in the remaining oil – you may need to add a little extra as sage will soak some up.
