kombucha squash and kale pasta

Fast and easy. 1 pan + 1 pot + 1 dish + 30 minutes = enough food for 2 for dinner and 4 lunches. Not too mention it tasted ridiculously good and had everyone in my office asking where I bought it so they could order take out, even though we work at Whole Foods...

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. Whole Wheat Penne
1 package Light Life Italian Sausage, roughly chopped. Or just use the real thing, no hate.
1/2 Kombucha Squash (about 2 cups), peeled, seeded, and 1/2" sliced (it's rustic, you don't have to be exact)
1 bunch Kale, roughly julienned
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1/2 Cup Pecorino Romano cheese, shredded (or nutritional yeast)
Salt to taste
Pepper (I like a lot of it in this dish)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil, better keep the bottle handy.

Set your oven to 200 degrees and oil a casserole dish.

While pasta water is heating up, add 2 Tbsp. of olive oil to a saute' pan set to medium high heat. Add the 'sausage' and brown for about 4 minutes, stirring constantly. Try to get it out of the pan without losing to much of the oil since it will help to flavor the rest of the components of the final dish. Place the sausage in the casserole dish and pop it back in the oven.

Cook pasta according to package directions.

Add the squash and garlic to the pan (and any oil if you need to) and continue to saute' for about 10 minutes until the squash is fork tender. Season with salt and pepper and place in the casserole dish. By this time your pasta should also be done so shock it with cold water, oil lightly, and add it to the casserole dish as well and place it back in the oven.

Lower the heat of the saute' pan to medium and gently wilt the kale. You might need to do this in two batches if your pan isn't very large, or your bunch of kale is. As you may have guessed; put it in the dish and put it ba- wait! Hold on. Mix everything together in the dish, season to taste with salt (be careful though, pecorino romano is salty as well), tons of freshly ground black pepper, and any extra oil you may like to add. Heck, throw some butter in there if you want. Cover the entire thing in cheese and get down to grubbin', or put it back into the oven until you are ready to eat.

After writing this out, I really want to eat this again. We have been using veggie "sausage" a lot since moving here, especially the Light Life line mentioned above. It just has a super flavor "POP" that we can't resist. It makes even the easiest and fastest pasta night so much tastier, and goes really well with seasonal greens. Mmmmmm fake sausage.