On my very scientific Mastodon poll, a handful of people said they’d like to see food updates. So here’s a food update!

This morning we went to the farmer’s market in search of inspiring vegetables. And the market delivered! The veggie stalls have started to get their gourds in, which means I couldn’t resist the hilariously-oversized butternut squash. I even made my partner run back to the ATM to get cash for it, since neither of us came prepared. Knowing I wanted to make a creamy squash pasta, we went on the hunt - and found some lovely curly kale and a brick of cow’s feta, too. (Also, coffee!)

The squash in question. It's about 10" long and 5 or 6 inches in diameter. The photo features this monster squash on a cute wooden chevron cutting board, along with a head of garlic and a nicely round white onion. And my vegetable cleaver, which is 6" long, 4" tall, all carbon steel and sharp.

I’ve got plans at 6, so I wanted to have a slightly early dinner. So I tore myself away from Tavern Talk around 2 and broke down the squash for roasting. Squash huge. Squash tough. But it turned to rust on my blade, as it were, and soon it was in the oven roasting to get some nice brown flavor on top, along with some garlic and red pepper.

In the middle of breaking down the squash. The narrower top is separated into quarters next to my cleaver, and the rounder bottom is sitting on the cutting board judging me.

A rimmed sheet pan, stuffed full of slices of butternut squash. It's been brushed with oil and sprinkled with salt and red pepper flake, and a few garlic cloves are visible here and there. There's not a lot of breathing room.

I had meant to roast the onions too, but there literally was not room on the pan, so I sliced up the onions to saute at the same time as the ground lamb, instead. After some musing about kale as the mathematician’s vegetable, I remembered that I also had some fresh thyme from last week’s winter root pasta, so I stripped a ton of that too.

Mise en place for the saute. A big bowl of chopped curly kale, a medium bowl of longitudinally sliced white onion, and a tiny bowl of fresh thyme leaves.

Weirdly, it’s a lot easier to cook ground meat without it turning into big chunks if you thaw it all the way first. Who knew? Also, at this time I remembered the half jar of sundried tomatoes, so those went in too. Yum.

Partially-cooked ground lamb, in the bottom of an enameled dutch oven with some partially-cooked onion and sundried tomatoes.

The squash came out and went into the blender, then into the meat, and I had a bit of time for a simmer while the pasta water heated up.

Cooked squash (and garlic) on a sheet pan. Some of it looks brown and crispy, but mostly it just looks slightly caramelized and fully cooked.

A dutch oven full of yellow sauce flecked with green, while a pot of pasta cooks on the back burner. All the pots are red and cute, but they're from different manufacturers, because same is boring. I like the brief moment of calm.

Et voila! I stirred in the feta and a bit more pasta water at the same time as the thyme and the cooked pasta, and the whole thing came out a little sweet, very hearty and savory. We had it with some old vine zinfandel that my partner went out for, and they paired very nicely. Yum :)

A shallow bowl full of rigatoni tossed with yellow pasta sauce, studded with cooked ground lamb, streaks of half-melted feta, and spinach. It's garnished with some fresh thyme leaf, and a square stemless glass of red wine in the background.