Pumpkin Gorgonzola Bake Pasta

This pasta is such a lovely ideas for the Holiday table: it will satisfy the whole family, baby included!!! It’s one of my one family = one recipe ideas.

You will be able to serve the roasted pumpkin and carrot puree to your baby (starting from 6 months!!) either with veggies only or, as a more complete meal, after the addition of ricotta and vegetable broth. For the rest of the family and older kids you will keep going with the recipe and obtain a stunning yummy bake pasta!

Also, you can have fun preparing a fancy mono portion “vertical” pasta as I did in the recipe or you can simply dress the pasta with the vegetable sauce and spread it in a large oven pan, top it with the cheeses and bake…way faster and easier!!!

Let’s start peeling the pumpkin and removing the seeds. Chop the pulp in small pieces. Peel the carrots and do the same. I’m using a rainbow variety of carrots, regular orange ones will be fine too.

Place the chopped veggies in a bowl and add 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar + 2 Tbsp Extra Virgin olive oil + pinch of salt. Mix. If you are cooking for your baby, skip the salt (you will add it later for the adult recipe).

Transfer in a baking sheet lined with some parchment paper, one layer only and roast for 30/35 min at 180C/400F, stir once, halfway for a more uniform golden result.

At this point you can decide to offer to your little one a simple vegetable puree, so simply remove a baby portion (1/2 cup), place it in a tall container and puree it with an immersion blender adding some vegetable broth to thin (or other thinning liquids of your choice). Yes, you can use a food processor too!

Let’s keep going with the main recipe: place the roasted veggies in a food processor, add the sage, the fresh ricotta and the veggie broth: blend up until smooth.

At this point you have a more complete option for your baby: with the addition of ricotta you easily added good proteins to your baby food!! You can remove few tablespoons of the puree and serve it to your little one.

Let’s finish our grown ups recipe!

Fill a pot with water, bring it to boil and add an handful of sea salt.

Boil the pasta 4 minutes less than the suggested cooking time on the packaging. We are going to bake the pasta later so you do not want the pasta to be fully cooked or it will be overcooked after baking!!!

If you decided to go for the fancy vertical pasta presentation you need a “rigatoni” or “mezze maniche” short shape of pasta, basically a cylinder to fill with the pumpkin sauce and that will be able to stand vertically. Otherwise, if you decided to go for the easy large pan solution, any kind of short shaped pasta will work (fusilli or shells are a lovely idea).

Drain the pasta.

Add few tablespoons of the pumpkin puree in a spring form baking pan to create a base layer and, on top, add the rigatoni, vertically aligned, one next to the other.

Fill the rigatoni with the pumpkin mix and sprinkle the grated pecorino cheese and the gorgonzola cheese in pieces on top.

Cheese substitutions: you really need a strong cheese for this recipe to balance the sweetness of the pumpkin + carrots. Pecorino and gorgonzola are my two favorite choices. You can substitute them with any aged strong cheese: blue cheese, manchego, gouda, asiago.

Bake in the oven for 30 min (last 5 min in grill mode).

Enjoy!!

Happy Holidays!!!!