Pasta with Pumpkin Cream Sauce
From Every Day with Rachel Ray, via  The Peppertree

After 3 years of cooking together, I can almost always predict what recipes will get John pumped up.  Creole, hunks of red meat, anything with bacon – it’s sure to be a home run in his book.  These are the recipes that I email him the moment I read the title.  Then there’s recipes like this one.  When I stumble upon something that contains pumpkin, tofu, excessive whole grains – basically anything “girly” [healthy], I stick it in my “next time John travels for work” archive.  But this week I found myself with half a can of pumpkin, some leftover gnocchi, and this recipe calling my name.  

Unfortunately however, John was in town this week.  Dreading his sad puppy-dog eyes upon hearing the word “pumpkin” in our lunch plans, I decided to make two sauces for the leftover gnocchi.  The second, a decidedly more “manly” vodka cream sauce (alcohol = manly) turned out great, but John could hardly tear his fork away from the pumpkin cream batch.  According to him it wasn’t very pumpkin-y, just creamy and delicious.  So if you have a self-proclaimed pumpkin-hater in your house, there might be hope after all!

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• salt, to taste (I used a pretty hardy pinch – maybe a teaspoon)
• pepper, to taste
• 1 15-oz can pumpkin puree (pure pumpkin, not the pie filling stuff)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup vegetable stock (I’m sure chicken would work too, I just happened to have veggie on hand)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan (I used the green can stuff and it was fine, grate your own if you’re feeling zealous)
• pasta of your choice, about 1 lb, cooked according to package directions
• parsley, to taste

Preparation

1. Melt butter in a large saute pan over medium-low heat.
2. Add onion, salt and pepper and saute, stirring often, until soft, about 6 minutes.
3. Stir in pumpkin and heavy cream and bring to a boil.
4. Add stock and stir until well combined.
5. Add Parmesan cheese.  Stir to combine, until cheese melts.
6. Stir in cooked pasta.  Don’t put a whole pound in at once.  Just add the amount that looks right to you.  We used gnocchi, which is really heavy, so we had a very high sauce:pasta ratio.  You may want more or less pasta, depending on your taste.
7. Serve topped with parsley.

Serves about 4.