Grab a knife and take a deep breath...

When you love food, Thanksgiving is pretty much the ultimate. It is a holiday dedicated to eating... what more could you want. However, mix in some family dynamics, traffic from hell, and battling the crowds in the grocery store and it can add up to equal parts stress and joy. So at the end of a long, crazy weekend, we arrived home and I needed a way to unwind. For me, cooking was just the outlet I needed.

While I was looking forward to cooking up a storm, I was in no mood to tackle grocery shopping. As always, my motto in the kitchen is to work with what you have and tonight was no different.

A night of cooking for stress relief calls for some comfort food... Roasted Butternut Squash and Bacon Pasta.

To start with, you'll need to cube up a medium butternut squash. Now, there are no two ways around this - cutting up a butternut squash is a total pain in the butt (and prospectively dangerous - every time I do it, I imagine chopping off a digit). Everyone does this task a little differently... some peel it beforehand, but I have no patience for that.

I chop mine in half, then slice the neck in half again, and run a knife down the sides. The base is a little trickier. Cut off the very bottom so that it sits flat, and keep cutting the sections in half until they're manageable. Run a knife along the inner flesh to remove the seeds and innards and then also run it along the outside to remove the skin. Cut all of the larger pieces into small chunks.

Get the squash cubes into a 425 degree oven on a baking sheet coated with a little olive oil. Sprinkle the cubes with a mix of salt, pepper (I used a blend of red and black), and thyme (or, any woody herb). Bake for about 30 minutes, or until tender.

While the squash is baking, get together the rest of the ingredients. First, fry up a few slices of bacon. For any regular blog readers, you'll notice that I use bacon a lot. Not only is it quite possibly the most delish food of all time, it's a great way to get the flavor and texture of meat in a dish, but you only need a little bit. I try and eat meat-free as much as possible, so using a little bacon is a way to meet in the middle.

I addition, you'll want to cook a half pound of pasta. Good grief, how embarrassing is this photo? I didn't have enough of either type of pasta, so I just combined them. While I wouldn't do this if I was making this dish for guests, it got the job done and - as I say so often - I just used what I had.

Once the bacon comes out of the pan, chop it up, and saute a cup or so of thinly sliced onions or shallots in the pan drippings. Could they be more gorgeous in the pan?

When the squash is done, toss it together with the bacon and onions.

All good comfort foods need cheese and this one is no different. The sauce starts with a good pinch of salt and a quarter cup of flour in a dry pan. You'll want to toast the flour on medium heat for just minute - this really just removes the raw taste from the flour. Slowly whisk in two cups of milk, bringing it up to a boil. Cook for a minute or so, until the milk mix is thickened a touch. If you like the science part of cooking, this step is for you - it always amazes me to see how flour and milk magically make sauce.

Turn the heat off and mix in your cheeses. For real, add whatever you have on hand - just make it about three-quarters to a full cup of cheese. Tonight I had a cheddar blend and a soft style cheese called quark. The sauce will be thick enough to coat a spoon.

Toss the cooked pasta into the sauce... in case you're wondering, at this point, you've pretty much made homemade mac and cheese - delicious on its own! But, I promise that it will get even more delicious with the squash-bacon-onion mix in there.

Spread the pasta into a baking dish, coated with a little oil or cooking spray. Oh, and then top it with more cheese... I mentioned that this was about stress-relief, right?? Again, this can be anything you have on hand - I used parmesan. Get it in the oven for about ten minutes, or until the top cheese melts.

Having a pan of steamy deliciousness come out of the oven was my antidote for all the weekend's stresses.

Grab a fork and say ahh.