It’s finally beginning to feel like fall season here in Nashville. The skies have romantically darkened in the evenings just enough to see the red orange sunset. Autumn is that season where I always ruminate over the happenings of the past year and home cooking, feel-good comfort foods are what I always seem to crave the most. Lucky for me, Jared pretty much likes anything I cook so I found a recipe at joyfulhealtheats.com to get us started with our fall cooking spree. Of course, I tweaked the original recipe just tiny bit by not including bacon and changing the pasta type so what we created was: Creamy Butternut Squash Lentil Pasta.
To kick up the healthy, we laid a big scoop of the pasta over a bed of baby kale and added a few slices of lean seared steak to the side. Let the fall cooking commence!
Ingredients:
2 Tb butter
1 cup red onion, diced
1 clove garlic
3 cups butternut squash, cubed
1 1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 Tb diced fresh sage, minced
1 1/2 Tb diced fresh thyme, minced
1 cup 2% milk
1/2 tbs salt
Lentil pasta or any type you prefer
1 lb lean New York Strip steaks
Step 1: To get started cooking just like we did, your husband or significant other will need to forget to pick up the chicken stock even after they had promised you it was “for sure” in the cupboard. So while they are frantically headed back to the grocery store in the pouring rain (the rain is a real part of this story and sadly for Jared, there is not a whole lot more that he enjoys than watching a big rain storm roll through the Nashville city skyline) — don’t worry he got to enjoy the storm and the cooking when he returned! But for the sake of the recipe, begin to cut the squash in to small 1″ cubes and set aside.
Step 2: Add diced red onion and butter to your dutch oven or skillet and sauté for about a minute over med-high heat until the red onions have softened
Step 3: Add in the garlic and sauté for another 30 sections before adding in the following 
ingredients: butternut squash, chicken stock, sage, thyme, and salt. Stir and cover until you can easily pierce through the butternut squash with a fork (about 10 minutes)
(if you are cooking steak to go on the side of your dish, preheat the oven to 450 and season both sides of your steaks with salt and pepper and place on a cookie sheet until the oven reaches temperature)
Step 4: Add all ingredients from dutch oven to a food processor and puree while slowly adding the milk until the mixture is smooth
Step 5: Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the lentil pasta, cook according to the directions to make the pasta al dente
(While the pasta is cooking, place steaks in the oven and cook for 8 minutes and then flip steaks and continue to cook for another 8 minutes).
Step 6: Drain pasta and return to the same pot it cooked in, add the butternut squash mixture and stir together
Step 7: Take the steaks out of the oven and pour excess “juice” into the pasta/butternut squash (optional)
Step 8: Slice the steak and if you would like prepare a small bed of baby kale, spinach or other greenery in a dish or deep pasta bowl, make sure to do that. To finish, add a scoop of the butternut pasta and the sliced steak.
Enjoy!
Xo
Emily
Married to the Weatherman 