Fall is my favorite time of year. The scents, the colors, the cooler weather that ensures I-no-longer-need-to-wear-short-sleeves-and-show-my-hated-elbows-because-I-have-issues, and the flavors. Oh, the flavors and tastes of fall!

A favorite taste of fall for me is, of course, pumpkin. I had used it numerous times in sweet dishes and in dog treats, but never really in savory dishes. Once I discovered this side of pumpkin, I was enamored with exploring the ingredient further. I began my pumpkin adventure with a black bean pumpkin soup that I’ll share another time. It was delicious, and really opened my eyes to how good pumpkin could be in a savory application.

So delicious!

I’ve been wanting to get through the venison Italian sausage we make every year before my husband begins hunting this season. Where we’re from, it’s considered bad luck to begin the hunting season with any of last year’s deer in the freezer! I love cream sauces, and have been craving some sort of creamy pasta dish that uses this sausage. I thought I’d like to try making a dish that incorporated the salty sausage, nutty pumpkin, and toothsome pasta, with a little cream for good measure.

I love how this pasta turned out. It was exactly the flavor profile I wanted; nutty (pumpkin), salty (sausage), rich (cream), earthy (sage), and a little heady (wine). I’ll be honest, I thought my kids would hate this. My son declared it “kinda good”, a bit of a compliment, really; and my daughter snarfed her ziti and sauce, leaving only the sausage behind (this is usual for her with pasta dishes).

I had some leftover sauteed mushrooms that I reheated and threw in for my husband and I, and Mr. Pants declared that not only did the mushrooms add something for him, he would prefer it with them. So if you want to add sauteed mushrooms, I would just slice some fresh mushrooms and either throw them in about halfway through browning the sausage (removing and re-adding at the same time as the sausage), or sauteing with the garlic, and proceeding as written.