Squash Pastina in a Pumpkin

Although it already seems like a distant memory, Dave and I did have two weekends in a row at home at the beginning of November and as much as I prefer to be out doing stuff (particularly traveling), I put all the time at home to good use, browsing around for new cooking ideas, specifically with my new favorite fall ingredients -- pumpkins and squash.

Really there's barely any flesh in pumpkins so I figured out rather quickly that squash are much easier to work with. So after the ravioli I made only used a fraction of the filling, I was searching around to find something else that could use the prepared mixture. In my searches for recipes, I often come across other cooking blogs. I have so much fun looking through the recipes because they really reflect the personality of the blogger, plus my favorites share little stories and it's always fun to learn about how other people relate to food and fit cooking into their lives. Some are busy moms on a budget trying to come up with things their kids will eat, others have truly gourmet ideas. I'm most often drawn to ones that are somewhere in the middle -- creative dishes made from fresh, seasonal ingredients, but nothing too fancy that I couldn't make on a weeknight. Here's my latest favorite -- I've made 2 recipes from her blog over the past week, and as seems to be the theme with most of these cooking blogs, I made a few tweaks to make it my own.

Technically I've never had pastina, but we've probably all had some form in our lives. Basically pastina is really small pasta - think alphabet soup. It's a staple in Italy and I've even read that Italian babies are introduced to solid food by it (and not only on Proud Italian's blog!). My first bite of this dish made me realize why it's such a staple in Italy, it's home-cookin', comfort food. The consistency is similar to that of risotto, but it's almost as if the little bits of pasta just melt together; it doesn't have the bite of risotto. Oh, and while it doesn't actually need to be served in a pumpkin, it makes it so much more fun!

Squash Pastina in a Pumpkin, serves 2
2 small pumpkins, top cut out and seeds removed
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 butternut squash, cut in half and seeds removed
1c leeks or onions, chopped
a few springs fresh type
1/2c pancetta or other small diced ham
4c chicken broth
1 1/2c pastina (small pasta of your choice, I recommend really, really small pasta)
Parmesan cheese
parsley and sage to serve

Turn the oven on to 375 degrees F. Place the squash and pumpkins on a cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 40 minutes or until tender. You'll need to watch the pumpkins as they may cook up faster and they should be firm enough to hold the soup.


In a saucepan over medium heat, add a little olive oil and the leeks or onion. Cook for several minutes until softened, then add the ham (this can be left out for a vegetarian version, obviously using vegetable broth instead of chicken broth as well); cook until lightly browned. Add the chicken broth and bring to a slight boil. Add the pastina and once al dente, scoop in the prepared squash and stir to mix. Grate in 1/2c of good Parm cheese and stir to mix. Season with salt and pepper, or even crushed red pepper, to taste (if you use ham, that may give it enough salt) and top with chopped sage and parsley.

Results: This is a new McDowell favorite. It's a little soupy so I wasn't sure what Dave would think but he liked it even more than risotto. Squash is so good at giving food a depth of flavor without actually tasting like a vegetable. Since I used the leftovers from the risotto, mine had more leek and sage flavor as well. It's also fun to eat out of the pumpkins because you can scoop the insides out along with your pastina. The pumpkins did hold up after several servings too!