I've done this before. Not with the same ingredients, or procedure, but with the unlikely combo of pasta and seemingly inappropriate vegetable. It would seem to be too much starch for any one human to take on. But cooked correctly, the vegetable makes a creamy sauce without all the, well, cream. In other words: It works.

My experience has been with what the Silver Spoon calls linguine al pesto genovese, or potatoes and linguine with pesto. It must be some kind of a classic dish. But this one isn't, which comes from the Real Simple and replaces the potato with squash. It also adds some bacon--always a welcome addition--and goat cheese. The effect is the same. After cooking with the chicken stock, the squash breaks apart and becomes part of the pasta instead of its own separate entity. Every noodle is coated with this fall-appropriate dish. Oh, and did I mention the bacon?