Pumpkin Manicotti with Pumpkin Pasta Sauce

As my regular readers know (all 2 of them), I'm a big fan of eating seasonally. This time of year in Michigan, produce has become limited to squash, apples and the few stalks of celery and brussels sprouts which haven't frosted yet.

On the upside, this is the only time of year that you can get your hands on fresh sugar pie pumpkins. There's nothing like fresh pureed pumpkin for pumpkin pies and pumpkin cheesecake, and pumpkin freezes beautifully, so you can keep the puree on hand to make fresh pumpkin pies throughout the winter.

But pumpkin pies are so been-there-done-that. Since eating seasonally means I get to choose from squash, pumpkins and other kinds of squash, I wanted to try using pumpkin in something other than pies. Something savory and unusual.

My aunt and I were browsing the pantry section of World Market a few weeks ago, and we discovered yummy-looking jars of pumpkin and butternut squash pasta sauce. I scanned the ingredient label (which was surprisingly free of preservatives), made some mental notes and developed a plan to make my own pasta sauce.

But what to put that pasta sauce on? Plain pasta seemed boring, and carbs tend to outstay their welcome on my midsection. I wanted something a little tastier. Something like lasagna, but EASIER. Like stuffed manicotti. I'd never actually made manicotti before, but I know the recipe for lasagna by heart, and isn't manicotti stuffing just the yummy ricotta cheese part of lasagna? I always kind of resented the meat part of lasagna, anyway. More cheese, please.

Since I had a LOT of pumpkin puree on hand (I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the other four pumpkins), I added pumpkin to the manicotti as well.

(Sidenote: I've always hated cooking squash. If you bake it, it's hot and messy and gooey, if you steam it, it's like cutting and peeling a rock. It's messy and difficult, no matter which route you take - that is, until I discovered this new trick. Bake the squash or pumpkin at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes, until the skin softens and starts brown. Take it out and let it cool enough to handle, then you can easily peel the skin off, slice the semi-firm pumpkin flesh in half, scoop out the seeds and harvest the fleshy part, which I cut into large pieces and steam for another 20 minutes, until completely soft. I like to pop this in the food processor and puree it for good measure.)

Here's my frankensteined recipe for pumpkin stuffed manicotti with pumpkin sauce, in all its mushy orange glory. This filled one 9x13 casserole pan and one 9x9 square pan, which got stuck in the freezer for later. When you go to this much trouble for a meal, why not make some for later?

Pumpkin sauce:

1/2 pumpkin (~2 cups), steamed and pureed

1/2 medium onion or 1 whole leek, finely diced

4 cloves garlic, finely diced

1/2 red pepper, finely diced

3 Tblsp butter

3 cubes chicken bouillon

1/2 cup water

2 cups crisp white wine (pino grigio is good)

1 cup cream

1 Tblsp kosher salt

Saute the onion, garlic, pepper, butter and salt in a pan on medium heat until golden brown. Add these to the pumpkin puree, water, sage, chicken bouillon and wine in a saucepan. Mix together and turn on medium heat, simmer for 30-40 minutes, until some of the liquid has cooked off. If the sauce seems too thick, add a little extra water. Last, add the cream and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Pumpkin manicotti:

24 manicotti/cannelloni

1 1/2 pint ricotta cheese (whole is best)

1 Tblsp freshly chopped sage

1 egg

2 cups grated fresh parmesan cheese

2 Tblsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ginger

1 cup pumpkin puree

Boil manicotti in salted water until al dente, then drain and re-submerge in cold water to keep them from sticking together. Mix together all ingredients in a bowl (reserve 1 cup parmesan) and grease casserole dishes with butter. Stuff each manicotti tube full of the ricotta mixture and place in the casserole dish in rows. Once all the manicotti is stuffed and the casserole dishes are full, evenly spoon out pumpkin sauce over the pasta and top with remaining parmesan cheese. Bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes, or until bubbling in the middle.

Personally, I loved this recipe. I'm a sucker for ricotta cheese, and I loved how the pumpkin was so much mellower and lower acid than traditional tomato sauces.

When I asked my husband what he thought, he announced that it tasted like "grandma food". After a lot of carefully posed questions, I gathered that he was referring to the sauce's fine, hyper-mushy texture, which he wasn't a fan of.

Some people have strong aversions to "weird textures", like avocados. I don't, and I loved it, but as a fair warning, if you're serving people who hate the texture of avocados, you might want to forego the pumpkin sauce for something a little bit less grandma-ish.