Fall Dish

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day, so I was in the mood for a quick, delicious fall-type dish. I spotted just the one in my email, from a weekly feed from the NPR program "Splendid Table." For anyone who likes to cook or just to think about cooking and eating, this show is really terrific. There are all kinds of features, such as Michael and Jane Stern, who do their weekly "Road Food" discussion of interesting places they've eaten on the highways and byways of the US. They are entertaining writers and conversationalists, and I enjoy their books as well as their radio visits. There is even an occasional food-oriented game show, like the one where the host of the show speaks to someone with very little in the fridge and has to invent a full meal (judged to be edible by Chris Kimball of Cooks Illustrated) out of it. Sometimes the things in the fridge are bizarre, such as blue cheese, cauliflower, and capers, and occasionally, she cannot think up a dish deemed suitable to pass Kimball's muster, but she's pretty inventive, and it inspires me.
In one of her emails, the host (whose name I forget, obviously) recommended a pasta dish made out roasted vegetables--butternut squash cubes, onions, greens, garlic, crushed red pepper, and olive oil, roasted in a 450 oven for 30 minutes. To this, one just adds a 1/2 cup of half and half and (I didn't do this last) cheese. I don't eat cheese at all, so I left it out, but the dish didn't suffer for all that, in my mind. I served it over bowtie noodles. Delicious!