Celeriac Pasta Bake with Butternut Squash

I absolutely hate food waste.  Call me mental (mental I hear), but I would much rather feed an enemy than see food wilt and deteriorate.  It's lucky my dog loves leftovers!

Also, my food management is a little embarrassing, so much so in fact, it was only this week when I thought I should start using up all the stacks of cupboard non-perishables that seem to be forever accumulating.  Perhaps a few 9p burgers in A Girl Called Jack-style you think?  We'll see.  But today's main priority was half a butternut squash and celeriac in the fridge taking up far too much space.

So today I was pleasantly surprised and proud of this recipe's total improvisation.  I created a vegetarian spaghetti pasta dish for my lunch today with walnuts, feta cheese and a drizzle of olive oil.... oh my word, it was yummy.  And for dinner I thought I'd spread the veggy recipe cheer and invent a bacon pasta bake for my fiance with the same mixture which is today's bonus addition.  A 3rd cheeky recipe in the making would be a soup here but I don't want to second guess the exact measurements on here until I know for sure!

I even hate throwing seeds away, despite already having a garden full of veg seedlings this year.  If only I could give them to you, the reader, so you can try growing your own butternuts.

Recipe - Serves 4

Ingredients

Half a celeriac, diced
Half butternut squash, diced, not peeled
1 tablespoon ground coriander
2 garlic cloves in skins
1 onion
1 peppercorn stockpot
seasoning
1 teaspoon olive oil (or frylight)
1 veg stockcube or stockpot
1.5 cups of cold water
320g (or 80g per person) dried whole wheat spaghetti
20g per person of feta cheese, cubed (garnish)
125g mozzarella ball
A handful of walnuts crushed for (garnish)
handful of chopped parsley (garnish)
1tsp extra virgin olive oil (optional drizzled garnish)
Or as a pasta bake: top with 125g mozzarella, sliced

Method

Preheat your oven on gas mark 4.

Place all the ingredients in a large roasting dish and mix in the seasoning, peppercorn stockpot and coriander and roast for 1 hour.

40 minutes in, cook the pasta and set aside.

Now the vegetables are cooked, stir in a vegetable stockpot and whiz in a blender along with the water.

Pour over the spaghetti and place all the garnishes on top and drizzle the oil.

An optional bacon pasta bake recipe if you'd miss your meat:

I also had a bonus meal for dinner with the rest of this sauce today which again, I can highly recommend.  Cutting it short, I grilled 10 rashers of lean bacon, cut it up into bitesize pieces and mixed it into the sauce.  Then I cooked and stirred in 120g of whole wheat fusilli (for two of us), half a cup of fat free natural yoghurt, a splash of water and layered on top some mozzarella slices (125g ball).

And now I can safely say I am well fed and watered as I type with a swollen satisfied tummy.

I hope you love this recipe too & as always, please share your thoughts below.

📖 Recipe