Pumpkin, goats cheese and spinach one pot pasta.

Its that time of the year where every one is gearing up for pumpkin spice latte season and you’ve guessed it…I HATE THEM.

I am not about to tell you what to do with your money but paying anyone extra for adding cinnamon and nutmeg to your already overpriced yet bad coffee (i’m looking at you Costa) or worse, those syrups, is frankly madness. There are a plethora of squashes available that are super cheap lying around waiting for you to use this season and I am about to give you the tools to use them and feel damn smug about it too.

I bought my pumpkin from Gloucester Road Fruits for £1.99 and it will provide enough for at least 6 dishes AND the seeds too. They also have some gorgeous looking fancy squashes that i highly recommend you experiment with that are a wee bit more expensive.

Last night the bandwagon i was happy to jump on was Martha Stewart’s one pot pasta dishes. I had read about these and i couldn’t believe something so simple hadn’t been thought of before (or maybe Martha has jumped on someone else’s bandwagon?) The premise is that instead of cooking your pasta and sauce separately you dump it all together, bring to the boil whilst stirring and 10 mins later you have a pot of pasta. Simple huh? I found this recipe on Buzzfeed and have tweaked it to my liking.

Only thing i would change would be to add some meat to it (yes yes i know) perhaps a spicy sausage or some roast chicken breast to bulk it out but i would also suggest some roast red peppers or perhaps root veg but it was very satisfying as it was.

You will need for 4

• 1 cup of pumpkin Puree – you can find the recipe for this here
• 230g of pasta, enough for 4 portions
• One med onion, chopped
• Two cloves of garlic, grated or minced
• 140ml White wine
• 1ltr of stock, i used chicken but veg is fine
• Good few handfuls of spinach
• 120g log of goats cheese, the soft kind, can sub for cream cheese or sour cream
• Chilli flakes or hot sauce to taste
• Oil for frying
• Seasoning

Method

• Gently fry off the onion and garlic in the large pan until soft 
• Add everything but the goats cheese and spinach into the pot, bring to the boil and stir constantly. If left it will catch and the washing up becomes even more of a chore
• Once the pasta is cooked, reduce the heat or drag the pot off your crappy ceramic hot plates and add the goats cheese, stir till melted and the sauce is creamy and thick. Taste and adjust your seasoning accordingly, this dish needs more salt and pepper than you might think. Add your spinach and stir till wilted.
• Heap into a pasta bowl, add parmesan on top if you have it and serve with garlic bread