Roughly chop the pumpkin, carrot, onion and broccoli, then place onto a baking tray, drizzle with a little olive oil and roast for approximately 30 minutes.
Remove the tray from the oven and leave to cool.
Add the above ingredients to a blender or food processor with the spinach, tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, cashews, garlic and mixed herbs, and blitz until a smooth consistency (or leave it a bit chunky if you prefer).
Cook the desired amount of pasta as per the manufacturer's instructions and add 2-3 tablespoons of sauce per person into the warm pasta and serve in a bowl. Alternatively, reheat the required amount of sauce in a saucepan and stir in the cooked pasta. Refrigerate the remainder of the sauce or pop in the freezer.
Notes
This is called the 101 sauce because it is great to bulk cook and freeze and defrost on a day you are super busy, but you can feel reassured knowing this is filled with a huge variety of different vitamins and minerals — not quite 101 different nutrients, but a fair amount of them! Shop-bought pasta sauces can be a bit bland and don't always have a huge amount of actual veggies in them. This one is really versatile too — you can add in any leftover veg you have in the fridge as long as you keep the base ingredients of tomato and pumpkin. You can add the sauce to pasta, rice, noodles, potatoes, or even chicken or fish.
Allergens
Nuts.
Storage
Pop into an airtight container in the refrigerator and use within 3 days, or in the freezer and use within 3 months.
Variation
To make this nut-free, replace the nuts with mixed beans. You could also mix the pasta and sauce together and top with grated cheese to make a pasta bake.
