The internet is really great. If our ancestors wanted to find a new recipe to impress their friends with, they had to go to libraries or make them up. Now you can just follow one of the hundreds of cooking blogs and cooking tutorials on social media and take all the credit of coming up with a dish on your own!

On that note, this weekend I made butternut squash Alfredo (fine, I got the recipe from a Facebook page called Tasty) with a couple of friends on a lazy Saturday. I started by cooking a cup of diced white onion and one teaspoon each of rosemary and sage in four tablespoons of butter until the onion turned translucent and the butter was beginning to brown, but not burn. Then I added three cups of diced butternut squash (I kept the pieces to about an inch or so in diameter) and one cup of vegetable stock and let it simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes. I would suggest stirring it a few times because after I finished cooking there was a thick layer of burnt remnants at the bottom of my pot and I STILL haven’t been able to get it off.

After the 15 minutes were up, I was supposed to smash the softened squash with a potato masher, but I don’t have that so I used a fork instead and ended up with an overheated hand and big chunks of squash in the finished dish. I think the lesson here is that potato mashers are important, folks. Then I added two cups of milk and one cup of parmesan and stirred. It was supposed to melt into a pool of butternut squash-y goodness but instead I was left with big chunks of squash and big chunks of cheese and it was upsetting but also ok because those are both good things.

I added two tablespoons of brown sugar and grated some fresh nutmeg into the pot, as well as some salt and pepper to taste. Then I added in one box of uncooked, dry fettuccine pasta and covered it with two more cups of milk and two cups of water, and stirred until the pasta had absorbed the sauce and was cooked al dente. I freaked out at first after putting the liquids in since it seemed too runny, but as the pasta cooked it absorbed it and turned into a creamy sauce.

I served it with leftover parmesan and chopped up rosemary and sage and it turned out really well! I would definitely recommend making it if you’re as obsessed with seasonal orange gourds as I am.

Ingredient List:

4 tbsp butter (I recommend using unsalted)

1 cup of diced white onion or one whole, small chopped onion

1 tsp finely chopped rosemary, plus more for garnish

1 tsp finely chopped sage, plus more for garnish

4 cups low-fat milk (two percent works just fine)

1 cup parmesan cheese, plus more for topping

2 tbsp brown sugar

Freshly grated nutmeg to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups water

1 16 oz box of fettuccine pasta