Dinner: Black and Orange Halloween Pasta

Recipe by Melissa Roberts Cooking by color might not be the surest way to devise holiday-appropriate recipes, but who can resist the lure of black linguine on Halloween? Tossing it with pumpkin-hued vegetables lusty with garlic and hot pepper might seem

Ingredients

2 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
2 orange bell peppers, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound black linguine or spaghetti (squid or cuttlefish ink pasta)
1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives, chopped
Accompaniment: grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 °F with rack in middle.
Toss squash and bell peppers with garlic, thyme, red pepper flakes, oil, and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a 17- by 11-inch 4-sided sheet pan. Roast, stirring once, until vegetables are just tender and browned in spots, 25 to 35 minutes.
While vegetables finish roasting, cook linguine in a pasta pot of well-salted boiling water until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup cooking water, then drain pasta and return to pot.
Remove sheet pan from oven and pour reserved water over vegetables, stirring to loosen from pan. Stir in olives, then add vegetable mixture to pasta in pot and toss to combine.