Baking fall and winter desserts all too often requires a measly amount of canned pumpkin, leaving you with an opened can and undesired leftovers. You're tempted to pitch the sad amount of pumpkin, but you'd feel too wasteful. It seems better to let it sit in your fridge and mold instead of straight–up throwing it out, because at least you intended on giving it a better future. So, you sift through your disorganized jumble of food containers to find the perfect size for your awkward amount of pumpkin. After trying multiple lids, and deeply questioning your sanity, you finally find one that fits.
Leftover pumpkin purée puts you through quite a struggle. Let's make that struggle worth it by actually using the pumpkin in this creamy pasta with greens. This is also an opportunity for you to use up any half—empty bags of kale, spinach, or cruciferous vegetables that you might have floating around your fridge. This pasta is creamy, tangy, healthy, and eco–friendly. Waste not, want pasta.

What:

pumpkin sauce:

canned pumpkin puré
soymilk

thyme

nutritional yeast

smoked paprika

lemon juice

garlic powder

sriracha

olive oil

salt & pepper

pasta

sautéed greens/vegetables

kale, spinach, or cruciferous vegetables of choice

olive oil

lemon juice

salt & pepper

How:

Cook pasta.

Sauté pumpkin puree over medium heat with seasonings, olive oil, and soymilk to taste.

In a separate pan, sauté greens or vegetables until tender with olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

Toss pasta into the pan with pumpkin sauce and briefly heat while stirring to combine.

Top with sautéed vegetables/greens

What did I use and why?

For the sautéed vegetables, I used Trader Joe's Cruciferous Crunch Collection: a combination of fresh kale, brussels sprouts, broccoli, green cabbage, and red cabbage. I recommend this mix for the pasta because it's finely chopped and therefore an easy, unoffensive way to sneak super nutritious vegetables into a comforting meal.