Roasted Butternut Squash

Nothing like an impending hurricane to get me caught up on some blogging. With Hurricane Sandy's arrival imminent, I spent the better part of yesterday on my couch, both recovering from some Halloween festivities the night before and anxiously stalking Twitter/email for news that I wouldn't have to venture into work today. Mother teaches in Maryland and her school district was one of the first to see the writing on the wall and tossed in the towel yesterday morning. This further heightened my hopes of a day off work as well. Although the feds (I work for the government) spent most of the day toying with me, they finally made the call around the dinner hour and I was gifted another day to do all the things that I didn't do yesterday (namely cleaning and sharing the recipes I had stockpiled from last week).

And so, here we are. The rains have been present for some time and poor Shepherd dog is not amused. She hates been damp more than anything in the world. Despite my care to dress her in her rain slicker every time we go out, she's already begun to pray for daylight. Here's hoping that city living has some perks and we can survive the storm with electricity in tact. While we await the end of this storm, I'll be spending some time thinking about all the fun fall flavors in this recipe:

Roasted Butternut Squash Linguine

Ingredients

• 1 medium/large butternut squash
• 1 package of whole wheat linguine
• 2 cups fresh kale (washed and torn into small pieces) 
• 3-4 cloves garlic (minced)
• 1/2 cup olive oil + some for drizzling
• 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Slice butternut squash in half starting at the stem. Using a spoon or fork, scrape out seeds. You can either wash and toast them (like pumpkin seeds) or discard. Sadly, I was not feeling up to picking through and cleaning the seeds, so I opted to discard them this time around.
3. Drizzle halves with olive oil and place skin side down in a 13x9 baking dish
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tender
5. While squash is baking, bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook pasta according to package directions
6. In a large skillet, saute minced garlic in 1/2 cup olive oil + Italian seasoning (this will create an olive oil and garlic sauce to be used on the pasta)
7. Once squash is cooked, allow to cool and then remove skin and dice into 1 inch cubes
8. Add pasta, squash pieces, and kale to large skillet. Toss with olive oil and garlic sauce. Heat through until kale begins to wilt before serving
9. Enjoy!