Pumpkin Pesto

I honestly think this is one of the best things I’ve ever invented, although I’m sure that if I were to google it I’d find that someone has invented it already (but I’m not going to – for once I’d like to at least imagine that this invention of mine is also at least somewhat original). Anyway, it’s so delicious I ate probably around 400g of this myself, and could only stop once I literally could not eat anymore. I love pumpkin and squash in anything, so I’m surprised it took me so long to make it into a pesto. But anyway, here it is, and even if it takes a very long time to make, and cutting pumpkins can be extremely tedious, I strongly recommend you take the time to do this soon – you won’t regret it!

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 2 white onions
• 3 cloves of garlic
• ½ large or 1 small pumpkin/squash
• 200ml oat cream
• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 6 leaves of sage
• salt
• pepper
• 400g cavatappi (I usually say any kind of pasta will do, and any type of pasta will still be delicious in this case – but I just found cavatappi at the Waitrose by my house and was amazed by how well these go with this thick pumpkin pesto)
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Preparation (1 ½ hours)

Peel and chop the pumpkin into cubes. Slice the onion and put it on a pan with a generous amount of olive oil on high heat, then peel the garlic and add it to the pan. Leave until onion just starts turning golden brown, then add the pumpkin. Leave it there for about an hour, or until the pumpkin is very well cooked and disintegrating into a pulp, stirring every 10-15 minutes. Leave it to rest for a while until it has somewhat cooled down, then bring a large pot of water to boil. Once it’s boiling, add a generous amount of salt and throw in the pasta. In the meantime, put the pumpkin in a blender and add the cream, sage, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper, and blend thoroughly until its creamy smooth. If you decided to go with cavatappi, be careful, they only take about 6 minutes to cook. Drain the pasta, throw it back in the pot, and add the pesto. Stir well, then add the olive oil and stir some more. Enjoy!