Pumpkin pasta

I thought I was getting quite good at this cycling malarkey. Yesterday I took the big step forward to venture outside the comfortable walls of my little Italian town and cycle to the next town along "A beautiful hill town" my host described it as... that should have been a clue. On a borrowed bike without gears, the school run is perfectly doable, but as soon as you throw hills into the mix, I look about as professional as a toddler on a trike. A few embarrassing dismounts later (and a few false claims that my bike was broken, hence the walking - an attempt to save face) I arrived at the pretty hill town of Spello - and yes, I did reach the summit.

I wasn't really remotely prepared for a  morning of sightseeing. My visit to Spello was essentially a rather elaborate detour from my return home from the morning school run. As I cycled home in the early hours of the morning, I contemplated my plans for the day. It was pretty cold and, knowing myself pretty well, I was sure that, if I returned to home, I would most probably curl up with The Great British Bake Off and remain in the warmth of the house for as long as humanly possible. Determined not to spend my morning in this fashion (tempting as it was) I turned away from home and straight in the direction of Spello. As much as this example of spontaneous exercise does reward a certain smugness, it does have it's downsides: I wasn't wearing anything resembling sports kit, and (more seriously) I hadn't brought snacks. Consequently finding myself more than a little hungry after my morning, I cycled home at double speed to make this little dish (the speed was also partly due to my desperate need for the bathroom - I won't go into too much detail on a recipe post, but it's safe to say that a lot of water + bicycle seat + cobbled streets = need to cycle home quickly!)

Quickly moving on from that topic, this is a healthy, yet comforting dish which is relatively cheap given the small quantity of ingredients (do splash out on good olive oil if you can though). I've used wholewheat pasta here, partly for health reasons, but also because pumpkin itself is quite sweet so I think it needs the nuttier flavours of wholewheat to contrast it.

Serves 3

1/5 of a whole, medium sized pumpkin - skin and pappy centre removed, sliced into thin strips (once removing the skin and centre, slice into thin segments then slice across horizontally to form batons - you don't have to do it exactly like this, this was just my method)
1 white onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
6 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
240g wholewheat farfalle pasta
Pinch of salt
Parmesan and extra virgin olive oil, to serve

• Fry the onion and garlic with 4 tbsp. of the oil on a low heat.
• Once softened (after a couple of minutes) add the pumpkin, bay leaf and the remaining 2 tbsp of oil.
• Continue frying on a low heat until the pumpkin is really soft (about 10 -15 minutes)
• Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.
• Meanwhile, remove the bay leaf and roughly mash the pumpkin mix in the pan with a fork (you want it slightly crushed, not pureed).
• Drain the pasta (reserve 1 tbsp. of the water)
• Combine the pasta, 1 tbsp. water and the pumpkin mix.
• Serve with extra oil and parmesan.