Roasted pumpkin pasta

Every year, my sister's father-in-law brings me amazingly tasty and huge pumpkins and fava beans. He grows them himself and I am truly thankful for him sharing the produce. During this week, I have cooked so many different delicious dishes out of this humongous pumpkin and still I have about 75% left. I love to make raw pumpkin salads, warming soups and sauces. One of my favorite ways to prepare a pumpkin, is to just grate it and pan-fry it with some onions, salt and pepper. Yum!

At first I thought this roasted pumpkin pasta was a really simple dish. But when I tasted it, I realized it was something special. I loved the soft yet thick texture and sweet and spicy taste. I didn't blend the roasted pumpkins on purpose this time, cause I really didn't want to ruin this beautiful texture. I also added quite a lot of chili flakes, since it is freezing in Estonia!

serves 3-4 people

Preparation time: 35 minutes.

• 5 cups / 700 g uncooked pumpkin cubes (about 1 ½ pounds)
• 2 Tbsp oil
• ½ tsp salt
• a pinch of chili flakes or more
• 1 Tbsp paprika powder
• ½ tsp turmeric
• 3 Tbsp vegan cream (I used Alpro Soya, but you can leave it out, if you want)
• ½ cups / 100 ml water
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• freshly boiled pasta for serving

Preheat the oven to 400 F / 200 C. Put the pumpkin cubes into a medium-sized deeper baking dish. Add oil, salt and chili flakes. Mix and bake for 30 minutes. In the meantime you can boil the pasta.

When the pumpkin is roasted, put the pumpkin cubes into a saucepan. Add paprika powder, turmeric, vegan cream, water and soy sauce. Stir and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. You can see the cubes getting mushy and you don't even need to blend them. Serve the sauce with freshly boiled and drained pasta, a little bit of chili flakes and roasted sunflower seeds.