An Italian Thanksgiving?!?!

One of the things I really enjoy about being back in Dallas is getting to hang out with my friends. Not that I don't like hanging out with my new friends in Maine but it's different when you've known people for 10 years as opposed to 10 months. Since we've been so hectic with work and traveling for work lately I really haven't gotten to hang out with them much. Well, last night that finally changed. Once a month we have a supper club where everyone makes a dish and we all share. Each month has a theme. Since this was November and Thanksgiving is in November the theme was "A Twisted Thanksgiving". I love watching Top Chef and Chopped and shows like that. I wish I was as creative as they are with cooking. Well, for supper club I actually had to try to be. You were supposed to take a typical Thanksgiving food and make it in a unique way.

I love to cook and took a class to learn how to make pasta a while back. So after giving it some thought, brainstorming with Tamara and Elizabeth and searching the net I finally landed with a dish I made up and have named "Creamy Pumpkin Pasta". Sean tried to come up with an acronym which ended up CRP which he pronounced "crap". I didn't take too kindly to this but he ate the dish so I guess it wasn't too much like crap.

I started out with the pasta. I don't have the exact amounts because I had to make adjustments because it wasn't the consistency it needed to be. Here's roughly what it was:

Pumpkin Pasta
1-1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
1 TBSP olive oil
dash pumpkin pie seasoning

I actually had to make 2 batches because it didn't make enough. Start by placing your ingredients in the following way. This was a trick I learned with making regular pasta but probably not necessary for this recipe as the pumpkin puree isn't runny like eggs. By the way, it smelled like baby food.

After you get it all mixed up it should look like this.

Next get out your pasta press (love this thing and prefer the hand crank to the motorized one).

Not sure what the deal was (probably not exactly the right consistency) but it took some running through the press to get it to the point where I could cut it. This is what the first time through the press looked like.

After working on it, it was finally ready to cut.

I cut one batch as spaghetti and one batch as fettuccine. After I cooked them, it was clear the fettuccine was the way to go. The spaghetti shape didn't hold up.

Next was the sauce. Again, I kept messing with it so not sure the exact recipe but here's my guess.

Creamy Turkey Pumpkin Sauce
1 pkg ground turkey
2 cans diced tomatoes (Italian style)
Garlic to taste
Extra onion to taste
Secret herbs brought back from Greece
Laughing Cow light cheese wedges (I think about 6 of them. I mixed several flavors.)
Rest of the can of pumpkin puree
Salt & Pepper to taste

Here are the secret herbs. Still trying to figure out exactly what they are.

I'd like to say this is what it looked like in the end but it's not. This is before I added the cheese and pumpkin.

After I cooked the pasta I added some of the water to the sauce because it had thickened up more then I wanted it to. It was almost all gone by the end of the night so it must not have been too bad. Maggie (only 11 months) sure loved the pasta. She just kept shoveling it in. I wish I had a picture of that cuz she's so dang cute!

It was so great to get to see everyone again. I look forward to more good times over the winter!