A quick and easy winter warmer recipe. Still using up your Halloween squash or just enjoying these delicious Winter fruits?  Try this. I found a small squash lurking in the fruit bowl and some sausages in the fridge - this recipe is the very-popular-with-all-the-family result. 

Serves 4-5 in less than half an hour

Ingredients

• 1 packet of good quality herby sausages
• 1 small squash, peeled and diced to a rough 1cm dice.  Keep the seeds
• Pasta - I used a packet of giant dried conchiglie (shells)
• Good slurp of white wine - think Keith Floyd
• Handful toasted pinenuts
• Generous shavings parmesan
• Handful fresh sage - pick the leaves off, stack and roll the leaves together into a tube shape and slice thinly across the tube - (this is called a chiffonade if you're feeling fancy, from the French meaning tiny ribbons)
• Salt & pepper

Method

1. Put your pasta water pan on to boil; it needs to be at a rolling boil before you add your pasta.  Add some salt and a splash of olive oil.  This sauce part of this recipe will cook in the time it takes to cook your pasta but, if you are not feeling confident about timings, your sauce will sit quite happily and wait for you.
2. Peel the sausages and divide into small pieces, roll into balls - you should get 5-6 balls per sausage.  Add to a frying pan with a splosh of olive oil, cook until they get slightly brown.
3. Start to cook your pasta according to the instructions. The dried shells take roughly 12 minutes.  I used these because 1. they're fun and 2. they get coated in beautifully in the sauce and make little beds for the meatballs.
4. Add the diced squash and cook over a low heat with the sausage balls. After about 5 minutes the squash will start to soften and create a lovely sticky juice with the sausages.
5. Add a good slosh of white wine to the mix, cook it through to let the alcohol burn off.  You can keep adding wine (!) to achieve the viscosity you want. It will combine with the other ingredients to create a rich, unctuous sauce.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste.  
7. Throw in your chopped sage, sprinkle on lots of toasted pine nuts and add your sauce to your pasta. Be gentle, you don't want to over mush your squash. Serve in a large lovely bowl.
8. Use a vegetable peeler to sliver some parmesan shavings on top.

More Fun

• Wash and dry the seeds from your squash.  Toss in olive oil and honey with a tiny bit of salt.  Bake in the oven on a low heat until they are well toasted.  This takes a good 45 minutes. Snack!