Pasta with Squash and Prawns

I have had a butternut squash languishing sadly and unwanted for over a week. The poor thing was bought with the best intentions of forming part of a lamb tagine that I found on the Martha Stewart website when I thought that I had lost the recipe for Antonia's tagine. However, luckily for me, and unluckily for the squash, I found Antonia's recipe again (and I reiterate that it's a really good tagine - a keeper!).

While I spent day after day avoiding "eye contact" with the neglected squash, it was edging nearer to the compost heap. However, salvation came for both of us when I spotted this dish on Peter's blog. Now obviously, Peter's pasta looks better than mine, partly because I cheated and used pre-cooked, pre-shelled prawns so I didn't get that lovely pan-browned colour on them, and partly because my photography skills can only go up from here, but this is the same dish. To find out how you can make it, you can check out the recipe here on the Food Network site.

The only alterations to the recipe that I made, apart from the use of "cheat" prawns, were to leave out the basil (because I didn't have any!), substitute chicken stock for vegetable stock (because I didn't have vegetable stock) and to Aussie-fy the dish by using grated Coon cheese instead of parmesan (not because Coon looks or tastes anything like parmesan, but because that is what I had in the fridge).

In my humble opinion, this pasta dish tastes better after it has been left to stand for a while and the sauce thickens - this seemed to bring out the squash flavour better than when it is straight off the stovetop. If I made it again, I would buy uncooked prawns from the fishmonger rather than the pre-cooked variety from Coles deli, if only because those pan-cooked prawns look so delicious. For a change from your usual cream or tomato based pasta sauce, or if, like me, you happen to have a squash to use up, you won't go wrong if you try this dish.