Pasta with Pumpkin-Cream Sauce

HOWDY friends!  I was home alone and hungry one night, so I just opened the fridge and prayed for ideas.  LOL!  What I came up with just so happened to be delicious, so I had to post this, in case someone out there might like it as much as I did.  (I just love it when an clean-out-the-fridge-experiment turns out so good!)  

I had some leftover pureed pumpkin in the fridge, along with some dairy products that needed to be used, so I thought I'd see what I could come up with.  (Canned pumpkin would work fine, just be sure it is NOT pumpkin pie filling!)  I didn't measure anything, so I can't give you the exact recipe.  I just added stuff to the pumpkin I had left until it looked like the consistency I wanted.  Then I tossed it with some pasta and voilà...total deliciousness!

First, I put some pasta on to boil.  (I had some rigatoni in the pantry, so that's what I used.  It went really well with the sauce.)  While the pasta was cooking, I basically just dumped the pureed pumpkin in a saucepan and added some heavy whipping cream and fat free half & half until it was the consistency I wanted.  Then I heated it over medium heat until hot, and stirred in some shredded Parmesan, crumbled bacon, garlic powder, salt, pepper and a little pasta water.

Once the pasta was done, I just had to drain it and toss it with the sauce.  Oh yeah, this is important...I tossed a few diced roasted almonds on top for garnish too.  (You don't want to leave those out...sooooo good!!)

Last, but not least, I toasted bagel (that needed to be used) and spread with some pesto (also from the fridge) on it, and I had a yummy meal in just a matter of minutes!  The only bad thing was that I just made enough for one meal, so there weren't any leftovers.  Next time, I'll make a bigger batch!

Hope all is well with you my friends.  Get out there and enjoy this lovely fall weather if you can.

Blessings,
--Faithy