Butternut Squash Pasta Bake

Last night after browsing a bunch of recipes online, I decided to wing it and put together my own pasta casserole.  It turned out tasty, except I burned it a little at the end, d’oh!

Butternut Squash Pasta Bake

Ingredients

• Butternut Squash, 2 cup, cubes
• Olive Oil, 2 tsp
• Kale, 3 cup, chopped (you could probably substitute spinach here)
• Garlic, 1 clove
• 4 cups Whole Wheat Pasta (penne)
• Mozzarella Finely shredded Part Skim cheese, .5 cup
• Almond Breeze Almond Milk, Unsweetened Vanilla, 4 oz (you could use regular skim milk)
• .5 cup chicken or veggie broth
• .25 cup bread crumbs (I used panko style)
• 1 tbsp shredded parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400*.  Toss butternut squash with 1 tsp of olive oil and a pinch of salt.  Cook until squash can easily be pierced by a fork, about 25 minutes.  When the squash is done, lower the oven temperature to 350*.
2. Cook pasta according to directions for al dente.
3. Heat other tsp of olive oil in a large non-stick pan.  Add kale and cook for about 5 minutes.  
   
4. Add garlic to pan and cook for another 30 seconds.  Add chicken broth and cook another 5 minutes, until kale is wilted.
5. Add cooked pasta to a medium size baking dish.  Fold in butternut squash, kale mixture, mozzarella cheese and almond milk.  Mix together well.
6. Top with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese.
7. Cover with aluminum foil and cook for 20 minutes.  Remove foil and cook another 10 minutes until the top has browned.  But not this brown.  I made mine in the toaster oven, and it turns out the top was way to close to the top of the oven.

Nutritional Information (makes 6 servings)

Calories – 307      Fat – 5.3g     Carbs – 53.6g     Fiber – 8.5g      Protein – 13.8g

This would be a great pre-race dish because of all those carbs!  

Anyways, I’ll be posting later tonight with an update after my doctor’s appointment.  I’m excited to know what the diagnosis is so I can make a game plan.