Spicy spaghetti with pumpkin sauce
( Spaghetti piccanti con zucca )

Recipe for spaghetti with pumpkin

Preparation and cooking

• - Prepare pumpkin.
  Peel off its thick skin and remove its large seeds.
  Wash and steam until soft.
• - Cook spaghetti.
  Cook spaghetti in a large kettle of boiling salted water according to the package directions, until "al dente" stage.
• - Prepare pasta sauce.
  Meanwhile crush steamed pumpkin with a fork roughly.
  Put olive oil, anchovies and bay leaf into a non-stick frying pan.
  Saute for a minute stirring often to melt anchovies.
  Add cherry tomatoes with their juice, capers and pumpkin too.
  Season to taste with salt and cook over a medium heat for some minutes, stirring now and then, until your sauce is well reduced.
  Once turned off the stove add herbs too and stir.
• - The last step.
  Drain pasta very well and pour onto the pan.
  Stir with a wooden spoon and let it finish cooking with all the ingredients for 1-2 minutes.

Just before serving

• - Once you have turned off your stove, add some drops of chilli pepper oil.
• - Serve your spaghetti immediately, hot.

Note

Tips

• - If you don't have spicy olive oil you can use a pice of hot chilli pepper preparing pasta sauce.
• - In Italy we find pumpkin in fall and winter so Carlo and I freeze it to be able to use in the following months. We clean and steam pumpkin as we have just told you. We crush the pulp and divide it into the portions we always use. Cube containers are perfect for freezing. So when we have to use pumpkin for pasta sauce or soups or minestrone we thaw the right quantity. Preserve frozen pumpkin for 3 months.
• - You can prepare pumpkin one or two days ahead. Clean and steam pumpkin, cover and refrigerate.

Menu planning

• - Serve this spaghetti dish at lunch. This recipe is ideal when you have no much time to cook. Perfect for your daily menu.
• - Don't choose this recipe for a complete celebration menu. It's too simple to be chosen for a special event but there is an exception: Halloween menu!

Healthy eating

• - This pasta recipe can be served at lunch. This is a low calorie spaghetti recipe. In other words it's a light recipe. You can complete your meal with a chicken escalope (100 g - 3 1/2oz), grilled and seasoned with a teaspoon of olive oil, raw seasonal vegetables and fresh fruit.
  Here are the doses per head: 80g (2.8 ounces) spaghetti, 100g (3 1/2 ounces) pumpkin, 150g (5 1/3 ounces) cherry tomatoes, 1 anchovy fillet, 1 teaspoon capers, aromatic herbs (chives, parsley and bay leaf) and 1 teaspoon olive oil plus a bit of olive oil infused with hot chilli pepper or a piece of chilli pepper if liked.
• - This spaghetti dish is a perfect vegetarian (vegan) recipe if you don't use anchovies.

Loretta

What's the right wine for " Spicy spaghetti with pumpkin sauce "?

My husband and I always drink a glass of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Cerasuolo (red wine of Abruzzo - Italy)