Sam O & Anne O's Fresh Pumpkin, Brown Butter & Sage Pasta Sauce

Yes...let the drooling commence...




Here's the story (ALWAYS A STORY!!!)...

Jake and I were caring for our neighbor's lovely dogs, cats, chickens and guinea hens for a few days. They had told us to take some of their long island cheese pumpkins (they have a beautiful abundance of them!!). So we did.

Yesterday morning, I was roasting, puréeing and freezing the beautiful meat from one of their REALLY big long island cheese pumpkins (and by the way, my friend, Jessica, calls them Sunset Fairy Tale Pumpkins, which I think I will do, also, because...well, isn't it obvious??...long island CHEEEEESE pumpkins or Sunset Fairy Tale Pumpkins??... yeah...I knew you'd see it, too...).

And I got to the point where I said, "I have to MAKE something with this now! I can't put all of this beauty into the freezer!!" And so I set off to making pumpkin pies ~ one for us, and one for my neighbors. And after that, I had a little bag of pumpkin left in the fridge.

Sam has been busy and then sick and he hasn't cooked in a few days. When he came out of his room yesterday late afternoon, he was DETERMINED to COOK!! I told him that I was planning on making a brown butter-sage pasta sauce for dinner, and asked him if he wanted to help. He did. And then he opened the fridge and said, "We should use that pumpkin that's in there, too." I did remember seeing several pumpkin-sage pasta sauce recipes when I was searching for something else, so I let go of MY dinner idea, and welcomed Sam's new inspired idea. I searched some recipes, and as always, we ended up taking what we liked from about six different recipes and we created our own version (there is nothing better than Creativity-In-ACTION!!).

Sam did not want a sweet pumpkin pasta sauce. He wanted it to be completely savory. So no pumpkin pie spices would be allowed (after all, we already had a pumpkin pie to eat, too!).

And so it began...

Sam started by grating some fresh parmesan cheese...




Oh, goodness...grated fresh parmesan cheese is a thing of beauty...


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Then Sam went on to chopping the onions...

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Really...aren't sage leaves one of the most GORGEOUS and FRAGRANT things in the world??...




We took about 3 tablespoons of butter, and threw in loads of sage leaves. Cooked them over medium heat until the butter was brown and the sage leaves were crispified (ha! I just made that word up and I love it!...you have to say it with a little bit of sassiness ~ CRISP-I-FIED!!)....


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Sure, Sam...there's time for an espresso and pistachio biscotti while you're cooking those sage leaves...



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Ahh...yup. This is what they're supposed to look like. Now you could VERY well use just *this* as a pasta topping (maybe with some toasted walnuts or pine nuts as well)...but Sam wanted to creAte MORE!!...



We sauteed some onions...then added the fresh pumpkin purée (yes, you could use canned pumpkin, if you were so inclined...)...




We then added the butter/sage combo, the parmesan cheese, some milk, some vegetarian chicken broth, some white wine, kosher salt & freshly ground pepper... Cooked that over med-low heat just to incorporate the flavors...
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Ohmygoodness...this is so gorgeous (pictures do not do it justice!!)... The sage leaves were crisp (crispified!) and they broke up nicely as I was stirring the sauce...

And the flavor??...oh, goodness ~ I almost passed out, it was so so so so delicious. Could NOT wait to eat DINNER!!

Sam and I discussed what to serve this gorgeous sauce on. I voted for bowtie pasta. Sam said it needed something more *meaty* and substantial. So we chose to have it on the fresh, whole wheat portobello/cheese raviolis we had in the fridge...





Oh yeah...he was right. Fan-freakin'-tastic...



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::sigh:: ~ I think I have the best dinner-table view in the whole entire Universe...(and that doesn't even include the 20-mile view of mountains and valleys that I have out our front windows!!...I'm just talking about these three phenomenal, lovely people!)!...


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And for even MORE freshly roasted pumpkin, we have the pumpkin pie that was a total experiment (I didn't have half and half, so I used some sour cream and some cream cheese) and was totally delicious.

Earlier in the day ~

Sam: "Mom, did you make a pie?"

"Yup."

"I can tell by your pants."

::looks down::

-->pants are covered in flour handprints <-- ... .
EnJOY. (and many many thanks to our neighbors for this glorious inspiration!)
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