Spooky themed dinner party

     It's almost Halloween.  There is no commercial holiday that I enjoy more than this spook-tacular one.  Dressing up, eating candy and fall-themed foods, watching scary movies; what more could you ask for?  It was in this spirit that Scott and I decided to host a scary movie/Halloween themed food bash.  Christian, a fellow wolfie, was the first to suggest the idea.  As it turns out, he was also the only one who came to our bash.  :-(  That being said, we still all had a good time.  So what did we decide to watch?  Poltergeist....  But that subject would be more appropriate for my friend Toni's movie blog.  I'm on to the food.
     Last year was the first time that I had ever cooked with pumpkin.  I only cooked the seeds (more on that on a later blog).  I was intrigued by the small pumpkins but didn't have the pumpkin guts (get it? [okay, it wasn't that funny]) to buy one.  This year, on impulse, I bought a small little sugar pie pumpkin.  I had debated the various ways to cook it until I came across Mark Bittman's Penne with Pumpkin or Winter squash recipe.  It seemed perfect.  A good way to use the pumpkin in an original way plus it could be vegan to boot.  One of my invited guests was vegan; since he didn't come I made it vegetarian by using butter instead of oil.  The recipe is as follows:

PENNE WITH PUMPKIN OR WINTER SQUASH
Makes: About 4 servings
Time: 30 minutes

Salt
1 medium pumpkin or butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled and seeded
2 tbsp butter or extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp hot red pepper flakes, or to taste
1 lb penne or other cut pasta
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg, or to taste
Pinch sugar (optional)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

     Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it.  Cut the pumpkin into chunks and put it in a food processor fitted with a metal blade.  Pulse the machine on and off until it appears grated.  Alternatively, grate or chop the squash by hand.
     Put the butter or oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  When the butter is melted or the oil is hot, add the pumpkin, a good sprinkle of salt and pepper, the red pepper and about 1/2 cup water.  Cook at a steady bubble, stirring occasionally.  Add more water, about 1/4 cup at a time, as the mixture dries out, taking care not to make it soupy  When the pumpkin begins to disintegrate, after 10 to 15 min, add the pasta to the boiling water.  While it cooks, season the pumpkin with the nutmeg, sugar if you like, and additional salt and pepper if needed.
     When the pasta is tender but not mushy, drain it, reserving about 1/2 cup of the cooking water.  Add the pasta to the pumpkin and a bit of the reserved cooking water if the mixture seems dry; toss with a large spoon until well combined.  Taste and add more of any seasonings you like, then toss with the Parmesan and serve.

     So, there's the recipe.  I found out a number of things by attempting this.  One, pumpkin is a pain in the arse to deal with.  Removing the pumpkin seeds from the guts for a later recipe was hard.  Not too difficult, but sticky.  Peeling a pumpkin is also super difficult.  For the first half of the pumpkin, I tried to cut it so that I cut the flesh away from the peel.  Each time I did this, I was afraid of cutting myself.  For the second half, I tried a vegetable peeler and found that it works wonders.  However, removing the guts from the flesh also proved frustrating.  I never completely removed them but I did a good enough job.  I had to grate the pumpkin in two batches after a failed attempt at grating them all at once.  However, my food processor (as always) does a wonderful job of chopping things into tiny bits.  I cooked the pasta ahead of time only to have it wait for about half an hour while I prepared the sauce.  I definitely recommend doing it in the order he says.  The sauce never did quite disintegrate to the consistency I wanted it to, but it was quite delicious.  I added a bit more butter and sugar than the recipe called for but I thought it came out good anyways.  We served it with a salad and called it a meal.




Penne with pumpkin and a side salad