Creamy Pesto Pasta Sauce

I love pesto..... oh how I love it. I buy it in bulk at Sam's and put it on everything from sandwiches to pasta sauce. As soon as my big jar from Sam's is gone I am going to make some. I'll post that when I do. In the meantime, enjoy a little pesto pasta. This is basically just your average ordinary alfredo sauce with pesto in it. A good way to change up an old favorite.

1 cube butter (yes I said cube)

1 pint cream

8 oz shredded parmesan cheese and for the love of all that's holy, not that nasty grated stuff!

1 clove of garlic VERY finely chopped. I would even approve to use of a garlic press for this sauce. I hate garlic presses.

6 Tbsp cream cheese

1/4 cup prepared pesto of choice

melt your butter and add garlic. Let the garlic saute just until it is fragrant. Add cream and when it is warm add the cream cheese and the parmesan. cook on low-ish heat until it is smooth. It may take a little bit. Be patient. After the sauce is smooth, add the prepared pesto stir well and serve over your favorite pasta with chicken (prepared however you prefer, baked if it makes you feel better about ingesting so many calories in the sauce, it will still require an extra mile on the treadmill, but hey) Note that it will thicken more as you take it off the heat. I could eat it every day. I better not.

Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce

I didn't get a picture of this one but I wanted to write this down so I don't forget what I did. The kids actually ate squash this way because it looked like cheese sauce. Way to fool them... I did it over spaghetti noodles and with baked chicken breast.

1/2 of a baked butternut squash

1/2 of an onion diced

2 tbsp butter

2 cloves of garlic

2 tbsp flour

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup half and half

Salt and Pepper to taste

I baked my squash on about 375 for 30-40 minutes until it was fork tender. I just quartered it, brushed it with olive oil and salt and pepper. You can also buy it already baked and pureed in the freezer section of the grocery store.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan and saute onions on medium heat until they are transparent 5-7 minutes. Add the chopped cloves of garlic and saute for an additional minute. Add flour to that mixture and stir until smooth then slowly add broth and half and half stirring so it doesn't go lumpy. Take the skin off off the squash and add the squash to the sauce until it is all hot. Then put the mixture into my food processor and blend until smooth. You can use a blender or even a stick blender depending on what you have. After it is smooth add salt and pepper to taste (I think squash needs lots of salt) and enjoy!