Butternut Baked Pasta

I saw this recipe on the Rachael Ray Show recently and knew I had to make it!  It has several delicious components to it....

• Brown butter
• Pasta
• Ricotta cheese
• Butternut squash
• Garlic

I am IN!  Also, the recipe was so easy to follow when I watched Rachael do it that it was easy enough for me to remember the ingredients and steps without having to actually follow the recipe.  I love meals like that.  For those of you that want to see how Rachael did it, click here.

I loosely followed the same process but used hot turkey sausage instead of the sweet pork sausage.  I also omitted the fennel seeds/pollen because I didn't have any and couldn't imagine a time I would use it again in the near future.  Saved myself some bucks at the grocery store!  I did use a whole wheat penne pasta instead of white pasta as well.  

This is a perfect fall meal since butternut squash is in season and is one of my favorite squash varieties.  I've gotten away from eating much pasta these days but I had to indulge myself for this one.

Doesn't this look delicious????

My ingredients:

• 1 small or medium butternut squash, halved lengthwise 
• Olive oil, for drizzling plus about 1 tablespoon  
• Salt and pepper
• Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste (I didn't have/want to buy fresh so I used the ground nutmeg I had in my spice cabinet.)
• 1 pound ricotta
• 1 pound whole wheat penne
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 20 leaves fresh sage 
• 1 pound hot Italian turkey sausage
• 2 to 3 cloves garlic, chopped 
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups chicken stock 
• 1 1/2 cups grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Preparation:

I followed the same preparation as Rachael

So this photo from my phone doesn't quite do it justice but let me tell you, this was delicious!  My husband wasn't as big a fan as I was but that's OK....more for me!  

Confession: I had this for breakfast the next morning.