Squash Mac and Cheese

For Dinner on Sunday I made something scrumptious so I wanted to share. The bread didn’t turn out so well. I tried one of those no kneed breads and it was way to wet, it just kind of spread out, and the knife cut didn’t work because there was nothing to cut. It actually tasted ok, so I’m not sure if I measured wrong or what happened. Oh well. I probably won’t try it again until the winter because it heats the house up so much (you bake it at a high temp inside a duch oven).

Of course the calabacitas and cantaloupe was good, but the star was squash mac and cheese. What you say? You don’t like squash? Well try this my friend and your tastebuds will beg to differ. I still had a banana squash on the counter from last fall and it was starting to look a little wrinkly so once I saw this recipe I thought this would be a good way to use it up.

You can't really tell from the picture but this squash is huge. 18" long and about a foot tall.

I got the recipe from here and then I doubled it, upped the squash, used whatever cheese I had on hand and did the salt and pepper to taste -not as much salt and accidentally way more pepper (the lid popped open and so I had to scoop up the top layer- I think I left my pepper grinder at the family reunion. Definitely need to replace that!), and left out the paprika.

For the cheese I used the end of a bock of chedder, some pre-shredded frozen sharp chedder, a bit of mozzarella, some cotjia, and some pre-shredded italian mix. Due to the Cotija it wasn’t smooth, but it worked really well with the smooth squash puree.

I don't take beautiful pictures of food, but we had already eaten half of this as it was so tasty!

The end result was so good, that I cut up, cooked, and pureed the rest of the squash to freeze for later. I can make it at least 3 more times since I have 7+ cups left. It is amazing how such a big squash actually doesn’t hold that much since its mostly hollow.

One bad thing about cooking in the house is our kitchen was in the 90’s by the time I was done. (according to the instant read thermometer I used to check the bread). It felt so good to go into the living room to eat dinner! We keep the door closed as our swamp cooler really only does one room anyways, but its not been keeping up very well with the higher temperatures.

The microwave also quit a few times cause it got so hot making my time in the kitchen pretty long, but was still totally worth it.

4 cups (dry) small pasta (elbow, shells, etc).

Cook as directed and drain. While cooking, melt

2T bs butter over medium low heat in a saucepan and add

2 Tbs flour. Whisk and cook for 2 minutes. It will resemble a paste.

Slowly add 1-1/2 c milk.

Continue cooking and whisk until combined, and almost bubbling.

Next add 1.5-2 cups squash puree,

3 cups cheese,

4 Tbs cream cheese (I think you could leave this out or add sour cream or something else if you don't have it),

Salt and pepper to tast (if your squash is really sweet will probably need a bit more salt, and I like lots of pepper).

Stir until combined and cheese is all melted. Add sauce to the pasta stir it up, and serve!

It was even good the next day and the day after that for lunch :)