Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
- Monty & Sons Trumpet Pasta
- 1 butternut pumpkin
- 1 whole garlic bulb
- Whole milk
- 1 can Chickpeas
- Goat's feta, crumbled
- Fresh basil leaves
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Butter
- Salt and pepper
Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 180°C. Cut the butternut pumpkin in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Drizzle the cut sides generously with olive oil. Slice the garlic bulb in half crosswise and drizzle it with olive oil as well. Place both the pumpkin and garlic on a baking tray and roast for about 40 minutes, or until the pumpkin is soft and caramelised and the garlic cloves are tender.
2. While the vegetables are roasting, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and cook your pasta until al dente.
3. Once the pumpkin and garlic are ready, scoop the soft pumpkin flesh from the skin into a pot. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins directly into the pot with the pumpkin. Bit by bit add milk and blend everything together until you have a consistency like thick pumpkin soup. Add the chickpeas to the sauce and warm everything through gently. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Before draining the pasta, reserve a cup of the cooking water. Drain the pasta and toss it with a knob of butter. Mix the buttered pasta into the pumpkin and chickpea sauce, then add a splash of the reserved pasta water to make the sauce silky and help it coat the pasta beautifully.
5. Serve in bowls topped with crumbled goat's feta, fresh basil leaves, freshly cracked black pepper, and a final drizzle of good olive oil.
Tips:
Choose a butternut pumpkin that feels heavy for its size—it will be sweeter and have more flesh. The roasted garlic adds incredible depth and sweetness to the sauce without any harsh raw garlic bite. If your sauce is too thick, keep adding splashes of pasta water until you reach the perfect consistency. The trumpet pasta shape is ideal here as it catches the creamy sauce in its folds. The tangy goat's feta provides a beautiful contrast to the sweet pumpkin, but regular feta works well too if that's what you have.