Butternut Squash Pastas

My mom really loves butternut squash so I discovered it at a fairly young age when she tried to convince my brother and I that it was different from other squash and tasted like candy. Nice try mom! However, I do like it quite a bit more now. The other day I decided to make dinner with some friends and they put me on shopping duty. I wanted something different--not tomato sauce or Alfredo sauce based so I found some recipe for roasted butternut squash+Parmesan. I decided to toss in some peas as well, and my friend decided she just had to have chorizo, so we rolled with it.

Pasta Numero Uno:
Butternut Squash, Peas, Chorizo, Plus Cheese Pasta:
*feeds at least 5
-1 large package whole wheat pasta
-1/2 a small butternut squash, peeled and chopped
-1/2 a package frozen peas
-3 or 4 links of chorizo, chopped
-shaved Parmesan (I think we actually used a Parmesan/pecorino blend)
-onion and garlic to taste (I think we used maybe 1/2 an onion and a few cloves of garlic)

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add the squash (I had never seen it cooked this way, so thanks to Lindsey for teaching), cook until tender
2. Heat some olive oil in a pan, add the onions and chorizo, then the garlic, and cook until chorizo is cooked through
3. Boil more water for pasta and cook until al dente or however you prefer pasta
4. Once the chorizo is cooked through, add the peas and cook until warmed through
5. Once pasta and squash are cooked and drained, mix everything together in a large pot (reserving a little of the cooking liquids as needed), and top with shaved Parmesan or pecorino or whatever cheese you like and let the heat melt the cheese. Enjoy!

Pasta Numero Dos:
As you might have noticed from the first post, you only use half of the butternut squash, so I had to figure out what to do with it. I also had the rest of the frozen peas, some baby spinach,

-1/2 a butternut squash, grated (I also recently discovered my grating blade on my food processor and was super excited to use it)
-1/2 a bag of frozen peas
-3/4 of a bag of baby spinach, chopped
-half an onion, diced
-a few cloves of garlic, diced
-a few links of chorizo if you have them on hand (which I did)
-a bag of your favorite kind of pasta
-grated cheese of whatever kind you like

-Heat olive oil in a large, deep pan, add onions and chorizo if using
-Add garlic and squash
-Once they soften, add peas
-Once peas are cooked through add spinach
-Season with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes or whatever seasoning you feel like
-As soon as the pasta is done, add everything else and cheese on top!

*Note: This is not only a really nice, light pasta (I know there's chorizo, but not much. It's really like 3 or 4 lengths between 5 or 6 servings which isn't so bad), but it's unusual and super cheap. For the first pasta I bought 1 butternut squash, 1 bag of frozen peas, 1 bag of pasta, 1 package of cheese, 1 bag of spinach, and 2 bottles of wine for about $17. I already had the onions, garlic, spices, and oil, plus one bag of pasta, so if you factor those prices in, it would maybe be $25 for two hearty, healthy dinners for 5 or so people. Not bad!