pumpkin manacotti

I ordered this at a restaurant sometime in September and was quite impressed. Luckily the flavors were simple enough that I could reproduce fairly easily.

Ingredients:

Pasta Shells Manacotti or Shells or anything that can be stuffed
1 squash (I used butternut, but you could use pumpkin or any other similar orange squash)
1/2 cube butter
1 container marscapone cheese
1/2 cup (approx.) pecorino romano cheese (or some other similar cheese), grated (freshly grated is best)
sage (dried worked fine)
salt
pepper

Directions:

1. Bake squash/pumpkin. Cut in half and remove seeds, place both halves in baking dish flat side down with about 1 inch of water. Bake at 350-375 for 45 minutes or until completely soft.

2. Once squash has cooled a bit, remove peel. If the squash is stringy, process in food processor. Add the butter, sage, salt, and pepper while it is still warm. This can be done ahead of time, since the mixture doesn't need to be warm when the shells are stuffed.

3. If you are using dried pasta, cook it. If you're using fresh pasta, make it. I made GF pasta and rolled it out into rectangle shapes to stuff.

4. Stuff pasta shells or manacotti with pumpkin mixture. Put in lightly buttered baking pan. Bake covered for 30-35 minutes at 350. You want it to be basically done at this point. Remove from oven and spread marscapone on top. The marscapone melts almost like butter. Add grated cheese on top and bake until cheese is melted and it looks done.