When I made roasted pumpkin soup a couple of months ago, I had a revelation with roasted pumpkin. I don’t know why I never always made a batch and refrigerated it. Correcting that now. I roasted a kilo of pumpkin cubes to use multiple times. Just cube pumpkin into bite sized pieces and roast in an oven at 180 degrees C for 45 minutes. Coming to this dish, I started off making a basic marina (tomato + lots of garlic) for spaghetti. While I was pureeing the tomatoes I realized I didn’t have enough for two portions of spaghetti. I quickly remembered I had the pumpkin in the fridge. I added two cups of the roasted cubes into the tomato puree and then cooked it out some more with some basil and paprika.
It’s such a lovely sauce. Thick, slightly chunky and loaded with flavour. I don’t usually have hard cheese at home so I added some feta into the sauce and crumbled some over the pasta. It was glorious!
Yield:
2 portions
Cooking time:
20 mins if tomato sauce is cooked and pumpkin is roasted
Ingredients:
Tomatoes – 3 large
Cherry tomatoes – 1/2 cup
Roasted pumpkin –
Garlic – 10 cloves finely chopped
Spaghetti (or any pasta) – 2 portions cooked
Thyme – 1 tsp
Fresh basil (or dried) – few leaves torn
Paprika – 2 tsp
Feta – 1 tbsp + more to crumble over pasta
Salt – to taste
Olive oil for cooking
Method:
Chop tomatoes (except the cherry ones) and tip it into a pan with olive oil.
Throw in the cherry tomatoes and garlic as well.
Lightly salt it and let it cook for 20 mins on low flame. Stir occasionally so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
After 20 minutes take it off the heat and let it cool.
Now puree it along with the pumpkin cubes.
Get this sauce back on the pan and on a low flame.
Add thyme, paprika, salt, feta and basil.
Cook for another 5 minutes on low flame.
Tip the cooked pasta in and make sure it’s coated well with the sauce.
Crumble feta and more fresh basil over the pasta and serve hot!
