cheap eats [pumpkin pasta]

I'm lucky enough to be living with my good friends until my DC move-date of November 1st, and wanted to cook us all a nice fall meal this past Sunday. I'd seen the dish below on Pinterest, and knew it checked all my autumnal boxes: sausage, pumpkin cream sauce, apples, sauteed onions and garlic, cinnamon and nutmeg, what's not to love?

via

I see her recipe was altered slightly from a well-loved Rachel Ray dish, and I altered it even further based on my preferences. I doubled the onions and apples, used less cream and more pumpkin, and went for spicy sausage rather than sweet. This really is an affordable dish: $3 for a pound of sausage, and otherwise everything is a dollar or two. Here's a brief rundown of what I did:

1. brown 1lb spicy Italian sausage (I used this one), drain on paper towel
2. add 2 onions and 4 cloves of garlic to the leftover sausage fat to soften
3. add 2 chopped apples in with the veggies
4. add 1 cup of white wine, plus sage and a bay leaf, and cook for 2 minutes
5. add 1 can of pumpkin puree and enough chicken stock to thin out the sauce
6. return the sausage to the pan, add 1lb cooked pasta (I used shells), some cinnamon and nutmeg, and 1/3 cup of whipping cream. DEVOUR.

Mine wasn't photogenic at all, but it sure was tasty.