Butternut Squash Sauce

We didn't use all of the butternut purée that we had prepared for our Rainbow Lasagna the other day, so when in need of a quick easy dinner, I threw this together to have over pasta. It didn't come out entirely as planned because the Allspice spilled out a little faster than I had anticipated. With a couple of tweaks though, it worked out.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp flour

1 1/2c milk

1 1/2 - 2 c butternut squash purée (squash rings roasted until soft, then mashed)

1/2c white cooking wine

2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp sumac

1/2 tsp thyme

Salt and pepper

1) in a saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour and cook for a few minutes until thick. Add milk in splashes, stirring until incorporated to create a roux. beware of it sticking and burning on the bottom of the pan.

2) Stir in butternut and wine, then spices. adjust consistency with extra milk if you want it a little thinner.

We used the sauce in two different meals. The first was over spaghetti with veg on the side. It was tasty, but the acidity from the veg was a necessary component of the meal to balance out the flavours.

With the leftover sauce, I mixed in tomato and peas and turned them into pasties for a picnic. These were arguably better than the original pasta the sauce was used for. I simply folded them in pie crust, brushed with olive oil and baked in the airfryer at 195°C for 8 minutes, they came out beautifully. These were perfect for a picnic, still warm in our hands on a chilly day.

As a side note, I used peach syrup vinegar (from making pickled peaches this summer) in the pie crust instead of milk or water. The extra flavour layer worked very nicely and added a contrasting acidic note to the sweet flavour of the butternut,