With all the pumpkin talk, I decided to try my hands at cooking a Pumpkin Cream Pasta for an easy weeknight dish. Since this was my first time making it, the pumpkin taste was pretty mild. You may add more pumpkin butter if you want more of the pumpkin flavor. Just remember to season with salt, so the dish doesn’t become overly sweet.
In order to make this dish, you can purchase already made sofrito in your grocery’s frozen section or you can follow the recipe below. A lot of different cultures have their own combination. For example, the Cajun Holy Trinity is made up of celery, green bell peppers and onions. The French Mirepoix is made up of celery, onion and carrots. The Portuguese mix onions, garlic and celery in their soffritto.
The smell of sofrito in my kitchen will forever transport me back to Puerto Rico. Whether my grandmother made it herself or bought it from a neighbor, a container of homemade sofrito was always in our refrigerator.
- 1 package Al Fresco chicken sausage, cut in 1/4 in slices
- 2 tbsp sofrito
- 2 tbsp McClain’s Pumpkin Butter
- 1 cup whipping cream
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp Troyer’s Amish butter
- salt to taste
- For sofrito:
- 1 green bell pepper
- 1 medium size purple onion (I prefer purple, but you can use white or yellow)
- 1 cubanelle pepper
- 4 garlic cloves
- 2 culantro leaves (if you can’t find culantro, you can double your cilantro)
- 1 cup cilantro
- salt
- Add the olive oil to a heated large pan with sides. Then add 2 tbsp of sofrito and cook for about 2 minutes.
- Add the chicken sausage and follow package instructions. Remove the sausage slices from the pan.
- Add pumpkin butter and whipping cream to the pan and cook over medium heat for about 10-12 minutes until thickened. Add 1 tbsp of butter, then add cooked pasta and sausage.
- To make sofrito: Chop and blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender. Season with salt. Keep refrigerated.
