Butternut!

I really love squash.

When we closed out the neighborhood pumpkin patch on Halloween, we left with a wheelbarrow full of squash.

In order to control our squash problem (we now have 10 squashes in our kitchen), I came up a new way to make macaroni and cheese while also incorporating butternut squash. It's creamy and warm, and orange. All of the things that autumn should be. I thought I would post it here just in case anyone wanted to try it out.

Butternut Mac N' Cheese
Serves 4-6, Prep Time 30 minutes (not including time spent roasting squash).

Ingredients
Half of a medium-sized butternut squash, roasted.
 3 tbsp butter (or olive oil)
1 cup milk
1/2 cups of heavy cream (or more milk, if you don't want/have cream)
2 tbsp flour
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
13 oz bag of whole-wheat (whatever shape is your favorite...mine is fusilli), cooked al dente

Directions

1. Drizzle butternut squash half with olive and sprinkle it with salt. Place cut side down in baking pan. Roast in oven (425 degrees) for 35-40 minutes. Squash is done when it can easily be pierced with a fork. 
2. Set aside squash to cool for 15 minutes.
3. Begin cooking pasta. 
4. While pasta is cooking, start the sauce by melting butter (or heating olive oil) in a saucepan over medium-high heat. 
5. Add garlic. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until garlic is fragrant. 
6. Add flour.
7. Whisk in milk, then heavy cream (or more milk). Whisk until mixture is smooth.
8. Bring sauce to a boil (this takes about 4 minutes), then lower temperature. Sauce should begin to thicken. 
9. Check on the pasta! Do not over cook it. 
10. Back to the sauce. If it's too thick, add a little milk. If it's too thin, add more flour. If you find yourself needing to thicken it, be prepared to whisk your wrist off. (Once you add flour, or any thickner like cornstarch or tapicoa flour, to a hot liquid, lumps will form and it will be difficult to get rid of them You can try to avoid this by mixing the additional flour with some cold milk and then adding it to the sauce.) 
11. Add parmesan.
12. Once sauce has reached the sauce-like consistency that you are willing to commit to, remove it from heat. 
13. If you haven't finished cooking the noodles by now, check on them again. Otherwise, strain them and leave them in a colander while you finish the sauce. 
14. Remove the skin from the butternut squash and add the squash to the sauce. Stir. 
15. If your sauce pan is huge, you can add the cooked noodles to the sauce and stir it all together. Otherwise, plate the noodles and serve sauce on top. Because the sauce is orange and cheesy, it looks like mac n' cheese, but it tastes so much better. 

(I have no future in food photography.)