Farfalle with Braised Squash and Greens

The other day I was looking at yahoo news and saw some article about having a different healthy meal a day and yes, would you like to see the recipes? So I clicked on it and out of the seven, I picked two that I wanted to try.

This is one of them, Farfalle with Braised Squash and Greens. The other is a chicken dish which I will eventually make and post about later. The original recipe called for penne pasta but penne is ugly and farfalle is prettier, so farfalle it was.

I must say that it came out beautifully...such a colorful dish! Plus, Mace Windu seems to like it!

Here are the ingredients. Thank goodness for pre-washed and precut vegetables. I hate cutting up squash. It's a total pain in the ass and it makes my arms tired. Wah, wah, wah. Or as mean headmaster Mr. Gilbert from the hilarious British sitcom The Inbetweeners would say, "NO WHINGING!"!!!!

Unfortunately, Mmy red chard in the backyard got overrun by snails so I had Bert pick up something even better from Fresh and Easy, a bag of "rainbow" chard. I love the colorful stems (red, yellow, and green)!

As mentioned earlier, the original recipe called for penne but I substituted it. Anything crossed out, I did not use, like tofu which I'm not a fan of. I suppose you could substitute ham, bacon, shrimp, or even chicken for this dish. You could probably also add sauteed mushrooms instead of meat as well. I also thought that 8 oz of pasta wouldn't be enough and nearly dumped the whole pound of pasta in the pot, but followed the recipe as much as I could. Turns out that 8 oz was just right since you are adding squash and chard to flesh out the recipe. Anyways, here it is:

Farfalle with Braised Squash and Greens

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 oz cubed smoked tofu
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 lb. butternut squash, peeled and cut into 3/4" cubes (3 cups) (I used the whole bag)
• 1 small bunch Swiss chard, stems removed, leaves cut into 1" pieces (I used half of the bag)
• 8 oz whole-wheat penne, rigatoni or fusilli (I think any nice chunky shape would do)
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 tsp salt, or to taste
• Freshly ground pepper to taste

Oh yeah,  coming up quite nicely there...

Directions

• Put a large pot of water on to boil for cooking pasta
• Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat
• Add tofu and cook, stirring until lightly browned, 3 -5 minutes
• Transfer to a plate
• Add onion to the pan, cook, stir until softened and golden, 2 - 3 minutes
• Add garlic and crushed red pepper, cook, stirring for 30 seconds
• Return the tofu to the pan and add broth and squash, bring to a simmer
• Cover and cook for 10 minutes
• Add chard and stir to immerse
• Cover and cook until the squash and chard are tender, about 5 minutes
• Meanwhile, cook pasta until just tender, 8 - 10 minutes
• Drain and empty in pasta dish
• Add the squash mixture, Parmesan, salt and pepper, toss to coat

Recipe source: eating well.com

Here, I added the chard before covering...

This was such an easy recipe made even easier by the precut vegetables. It's a great meatless dish but I'm sure you could customize this dish to suit your preferences.

It smelled so good when I took this photo. I even threw in more parmesan cheese in my excitement! It was a hit with both Bert and TC and I plan on making this again with more variations...