Pitbulls & Paints: Pasta with pumpkin sauce

Way back when I made a recipe of pasta, veggies, and a homemade Tuscany pumpkin cream sauce, inspired by a jar of Tuscan Pumpkin pasta sauce at Earth Origins that we didn't buy because it had dairy in it, but the idea just inspired some experimentation. Now here we are, back into the swing of things with everything pumpkin (if you haven't noticed, I've been making a lotta pumpkin stuff this month so far!) and I was inspired by a new, simple recipe for Pumpkin Sage Penne. Here's my version of the recipe; with no sage, but the addition of some fresh herbs and stuff and a toss of locally sourced peppers we picked that very day I decided to make this. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

One package of whole wheat pasta

½ of an onion, and/or handful of chives (I used both)

Handful of habanero or small sweet peppers depending on your liking
(you can use a small pinch of cayenne pepper if you want to kick up the spice and don't have fresh peppers!)

Zucchini or squash of choice (or really any veggie! I wanted to add some green in here, so we used a loofa squash)

2 tablespoons of garlic powder (or more if you love it!)

~2 cups of almond milk

~1 can of pumpkin puree (approx. 2 cups if you are using fresh pumpkin puree from scratch)

1 teaspoon of nutmeg

handful of fresh basil

Tablespoon of turmeric

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a large pot, cook pasta according to directions.

In a frying pan, sauté onions, peppers, and zucchini or other veggies until cooked. Add all other ingredients to a separate large saucepan.

Once veggies are cooked well, add to sauce mixture and leave on medium heat and allow to simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Check consistency, add more almond milk to thin and more pumpkin puree to thin it out. (At this stage, this sauce can be served as a soup by itself!)