One of my favorite features of a blog is how it's a working document. You can always change the writing and photography style of the blog, the theme of the blog, even the look of the blog. My favorite feature of blogs is how easy it is to make them seasonal. If you haven't noticed over the past two years, I tend to cook seasonally. I have a few reasons for this. Primarily it's because the produce that is in season tends to be cheapest, and I feel like I can offset buying a $5 log of organic goat cheese buy buying zucchini for .69/lb. in August.

However, I have to say as much as I love zucchini, I'm ready for that season to end. Now that fall is upon us, I am so excited to buy pounds and pounds of butternut and acorn squash, apples and pumpkins. When I began making tonight's dinner, I was torn on whether to make pumpkin ravioli or pumpkin pasta. I love making ravioli, but since I still haven't been able to find ravioli forms in the store, I have been putting it off. Since I have a fantasy football team this year and we have the red zone channel, long, leisurely afternoons in the kitchen are no longer an option, so pumpkin pasta it was!

I think pumpkin pasta tastes best in a light cream sauce, so I used my favorite mock-cream base, pureed cottage cheese! I found this method in the Moosewood Cookbooks months ago, and have used it many times since. I added a drop of skim milk and some pasta water, and it created a really light, but really creamy sauce. I also found organic apricot and rosemary chicken sausage at Whole Foods, which seemed like a perfect pairing, however any sausage would work well. Finally, I served my new favorite way to make Brussels sprouts - Brown Sugar Mustard Roasted Brussels Sprouts alongside the pasta. I ate mine separate, but JJ mixed his right in and loved it. This meal hit many of my favorite fall flavors, was hearty and filling, but also healthy!

Pumpkin Pasta with Low fat Sage Cream Sauce

1/2 cup organic pumpkin puree

1 egg white

1 - 1 1/2 cups organic unbleached all purpose flour

Semolina flour, for dusting and rolling pasta

1 cup 1% cottage cheese

Splash of milk

Splash of pasta water

1 tsp. rubbed sage (dried) or 1/2 tsp. minced fresh

Salt and pepper

4 links of apricot and rosemary chicken sausage, or any other variety

Crumbled goat cheese

Add 1 cup of flour to a mixing bowl.

Make a well in the center, add pumpkin and egg white.

Whisk with a fork and bring flour into the mixture.

Add more flour as necessary to create a stiff pasta dough.

Knead for 5 minutes, roll into a ball, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for an hour.

Add sausage to a skillet, cover with 1" of water and a drizzle of oil, bring to a boil and cook water off.

When water evaporates, brown in the skillet.

Turn heat off and set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, heavily salt.

Roll pasta through a roller and cut.

Drop in boiling water, cook for 3-4 minutes, reserve 1/2 c. of the water, drain the pasta.

Puree cottage cheese, milk, sage, salt and pepper in a blender.

Add pasta back to pot, add cottage cheese mixture, toss and add pasta water if pasta is too dry.

Slice sausage and add to the pasta, toss.

Plate and serve with crumbled goat cheese.