Meatless Monday: No-Meat Athlete Squash Pasta

Hi, Shedders and Getters! I’m Matt and I write the blog No Meat Athlete, which I guess makes me a pretty easy choice to guest post on Meatless Monday! I have a great fall recipe to share with you for tonight, but I first want to tell you just a little bit about myself and my meatless marathon antics.

As you might have guessed from my blog name, I’m a vegetarian runner. I’ve been running for a while, but it was only when I gave up meat back in March that everything started to click for me. I had just run the Disney Marathon — yes, the same Disney Marathon that your lovely host Rachel will be tearing up in January — but had been a little disappointed that my 3:20 finish time left me 10 minutes shy of my goal of qualifying for Boston.

I was willing to try anything to get there, so I made the “crazy” choice to become vegetarian. People tend to be shocked when I tell them I train for marathons without meat, but there are actually quite a few top-level endurance athletes who choose vegetarian or vegan diets. Well, long story short, it worked! Almost immediately, I felt lighter, faster, and more energetic. And three weeks ago, after six months of intense workouts and lots of veggies, I finally qualified for Boston at the Wineglass Marathon with a time of 3:09:59!

I’m not here to preach to you about the benefits of a vegetarian diet. I’m sure you’ve heard it all anyway. But I do hope that my example might serve to dispel any misconceptions you may have about vegetarians being weak and pasty and not getting enough protein to do endurance sports! I don’t know where this nonsense got started, but I can tell you from experience that I’ve never felt better than I do now. This diet totally jives with my body, and it just might for yours too.

And what better place to start than Meatless Monday? I’m a big fan of seasonal cooking and eating, and butternut squash is one of my favorite fall and winter foods. So today I have a butternut squash pasta dish to share with you, one that’s loaded with healthy carbs, protein, and good fat.

This recipe is similar to one I found in a Williams-Sonoma Pasta cookbook, but I had to make a few tweaks to cut out the meat without sacrificing flavor. I added some walnuts to take its place, and along with the squash and fresh sage, the result is autumn on a plate.

The recipe calls for diced butternut squash. Just in case you’ve seen these weird looking things in the supermarket and not known what to do with them, here are steps to breaking one down:

1. Cut the top and bottom off, so that it sits flat on a cutting board.

2. Using either a knife or sharp vegetable peeler, cut away the thick rind until you see the orange flesh. There’s a layer of light-green before you get there, but you don’t want that. Keep going!

3. Scoop out and discard the seeds from the bottom. Chop the squash however you please. You’re done!

Hope you guys enjoy the recipe. Meatless Monday is an awesome way to work vegetarian meals into your diet, and I love that Rachel makes it a weekly part of her blog. I think the more you do it, the more you’ll find that it’s not that weird to eat a meal without meat. Even if your idea of a nice relaxing Sunday morning includes a four-hour run.

Penne with Butternut Squash and Walnuts

Ingredients (for 4 servings):

• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 5 shallots, minced
• 1 butternut squash, prepared as above and diced small
• pinch of ground allspice
• a few gratings of fresh nutmeg, if you have it (don’t use ground)
• 3/4 cup vegetable stock
• 1 Tbsp or so of balsamic vinegar
• 1 lb whole wheat penne pasta (I also like Barilla Plus pasta for added nutrition)
• small handful fresh sage leaves, cut into thin strips
• 1/3 cup walnuts, lightly toasted
• 1/2 to 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (amount optional)
• salt and pepper

Boil a pot of water for the pasta, then salt until it tastes like the sea. (Don’t add the pasta yet.) In another large pot, head the oil over medium. Add the shallots and let them soften, 4 minutes or so. Add the diced squash, allspice, fresh nutmeg, and some salt and pepper. Saute for about 2 minutes, then add the vegetable stock, cover and lower the heat, and let it simmer undisturbed until the squash is tender. (This took about 10 minutes for me.) Turn off the heat and add the splash of vinegar, and add additional salt and pepper if needed.

While the squash cooks, drop the pasta in the boiling, salted water and cook according to the package directions. When it’s done, drain the pasta, pour into the squash pot, mix, and add the sage and a drizzle of oil. Fold in as much cheese as you choose and serve sprinkled with cheese and a few gratings of nutmeg.

[Rachel's note: Hell to the YUM! I'll be making it this week for an amazing "Oh I just went for a cold run!" reward. Thanks to Matt for sharing this! I wish I could peel a squash that easily... Be sure to check out No Meat Athlete for more gorgeous recipes/food porn, Sweet Tooth Fridays, cool product reviews, and inspiration and running advice from a real "runner." (Even though he doesn't think he is one.) And if you're a blogger, Matt's other project Health Blog Helper is an amazing resource that I use frequently!]

Tagged as: carbs, guest post, healthy recipes, marathon training, Meatless Monday, running, squash, vegetarianism