Cooking with Pumpkin: Pumpkin, Sausage, and Sage Sauce

Wrapping up harvest season with this easy sauce recipe. I only had to make a special grocery run for the sage. Everything else was in the fridge or pantry. I like to make a themed recipe for Halloween. This year I decided to try pasta with pumpkin sauce. 

Ingredients:

- puréed pumpkin

- 2 Tbsp olive oil

- 1/2 c red onions

- 1/2 c full fat Greek yogurt 

- 1 large clove of garlic, minced

- 1/4 tsp salt

- 1 sprig sage (4-7 leaves)

- 1 c water

- additional salt and pepper to taste

- 3 links fully cooked ground turkey sausages

Instructions:

Heat oil in pan. Add garlic and onions sauté until tender. Add 1 can pumpkin purée. Stir in 1/2c full fat Greek yogurt. Slowly add in water as needed to achieve desired sauce consistency. Add sage and salt. Heat til warmed, about 5 minutes. Add cooked sausage. 

Mmm, this dish was loaded with flavor and fairly easy to prep. I used whole wheat pasta, but I would love to try it with spaghetti squash. A simple savory sauce with high protein turkey sausage and a fiber boost with whole grain pasta.

I also tried to use all of my pumpkin this year:

Carved a Jack O Lantern

Roasted and puréed the shavings

Toasted and seasoned the seeds

What is your favorite way to use pumpkin?

I am thinking I'll thin out the sauce and serve it as a hearty soup for Thanksgiving.

Health and Happiness,

L

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is my favorite holiday.

Decorations, costumes, scary movies, and fall flavoured treats!  My sister and I joke that I prep for Halloween the way most people prep for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We had pumpkin oatmeal cookies

And pumpkin caramel blondies, 1st attempt and these were amazing!

A Witch's Brew of Apple Cider Sangria

And my traditional Sweet Potato Shepard's Pie and kale.

My own tradition as of Halloween 2010. 

I appreciate the DIY costumes. So I try to piece together character costumes based on as much of my own clothing as I can. This year I was Marge Simpson and my husband was a Halloween Hipster.

Last year I discovered that Halloween is a pretty big deal in our neighborhood. They block off our culdesac to keep kids safe and cars out. People from neighboring communities and apartments park all along the entrance of our community down to the pool house. Then they get out and trick or treat.

Last year I got stuck in Halloween traffic and ran out of candy. This year I was home and had a surplus of treats!

We had a great time handing out treats to the kids. I think our door turned out great!

We even had sound effects connected to our lights.

The rain and drop in temperature slowed things down compared to last year. 

A little before 9 we closed up shop to head out to Halloween part 2 at our friends home. All in all I'd say another great Halloween at our house.

We saw many Elsas, superheroes, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

So what costume did you see the most often?

Do you have any Halloween traditions?

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Health and Happiness,

Larissa