Vegan Butternut Squash Mac n Cheese

My CSA box came with a butternut squash, and I had no desire to make soup...which it seems is the most popular recipe for butternut squash.  It's fine, it's just not my thing.  I started looking around for recipes online when I realized I could just substitute out the squash for the veggies in my go-to vegan mac n cheese recipe.  For the record, I hate when people don't give you specific amounts and say a small/medium/large whatever.  In this case, I have no choice because 1. I didn't measure it 2.  It's not that serious, just wing it, it'll be fine.

Ingredients 

1 pound of cooked elbow macaroni
1 cup of reserved pasta water
1 cup-ish of frozen peas

1 butternut squash
1/2 a medium onion (again, not that serious) roughly chopped
2 cloved garlic, whole
1-2 TBS of olive oil

1/2 cup of cashews
3-4 tsp of salt (I use kosher, but use what you like)
5 TBS of vegan butter
1/2 tsp dijon mustard (whatever you have will be fine)
2 TBS lemon juice (fresh or from a bottle)
black pepper to taste (I crank my pepper grinder 10-20 times)
1/2 tsp paprika

 Directions: 

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Peel and cube a butternut squash.  Put squash, onions and garlic on a baking tray with a silpat or parchment liner.  Coat lightly with olive oil (or whatever oil you like).  Put the tray on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for approximately a half hour.  Flip everything around half way through.

While that's baking, put pasta in a pot of salted water.  Yes, put it in before it boils.  Pasta in cold water is pasta that doesn't stick together.  Don't waste time waiting for it to boil

Now that you're waiting on things to bake and boil, put everything from the last set of ingredients (cashews down to the paprika) into blender.  And...wait.

Okay, you're pasta should be boiling...don't forget to flip around the veggies in the oven.  They should be more or less cooked through and starting to brown a little.  Carefully take a cup of pasta water  (I dip my pyrex measuring cup in, do what you want, just don't burn yourself.)  Pour that hot water into the blender.  (Since I don't pre-soak the cashews, I feel like this helps to soften everything up.)

Carefully blend everything.  Drain your pasta (assuming it's done) and put it back in the pot.  Pour in the peas and mix it up.  Take your veggies out of the oven (also assuming it's done) and dump everything into the blender.  Blend again until everything is creamy and super smooth.  Now pour this mix in with the pasta and give it a stir.

Voila!