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Sunday, December 6, 2009

Pumpkin Sausage Pasta Sauce: GOOD

I'm not sure if there is still a canned pumpkin shortage. If so, read no further. I still have loads of pumpkin from pre-shortage days. Yesterday I bought a bit of breakfast sausage and remembered the above recipe, which I've always wanted to try.

I first saw this in a Rachael Ray cookbook, which I'd checked out from the library. Easy enough to do a google search. I didn't follow the recipe, really.

First, I used about 1/4 of the required sausage (my usual sausage practice). Then I added some chopped onion and leek. After a bit, I added a can of pumpkin, some chicken broth, and some whole milk (no half and half in my fridge). I cooked for a bit and added some red pepper flakes.

Served on pasta with grated parmesan. Surprisingly delicious. And pumpkin is a superfood, so lots of vitamin A.

Try this if you see some marked-down post-Thanksgiving pumpkin languishing in your grocery.

3 comments:

Duchesse said...

If one thinks of pumpkin as just a squash, it's pretty versatile. And sausage, onion, chicken broth and milk or cream will make a good sauce that welcomes almost any vegetable!

Funny about Money said...

Interesting idea!

A friend made a pumpkin sauce to accommodate lamb. I'm not sure of the full details, but he spiked it with some truffles. It was good.

The other day I picked up some Niman's Farm sausages, thinking oh how very free-range! Given the buzz about the glories of Niman's, I was surprised at how oversalted they were. They were a little less fatty than comparable sausages from the butcher case, but they were way salty for my taste.

Frugal Scholar said...

@Duchesse--I think Americans just don't think of pumpkin that way. But I'm starting to see the virtues of this great veg.

@Funny--Pumpkin doesn't have much flavor. But lamb does. Sadly, I've not yet had a truffle. I find most sausage, bacon etc too salty and cut the quantities by about 80%. I just use them for flavoring.