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Friday, September 17, 2010

pumpkin pasta

one thing i am discovering with increasingly mobile kiddos is how hard it is to complete simple tasks.  what used to take me a few minutes can take an hour, and a task most people take for granted is scratched completely for me unless the kiddos are napping or otherwise engaged.  this includes cooking.  i've learned that unless it can be 1. cooked in a crock pot  2. cooked on the weekend or while hubby is around or 3. microwaved in a jiffy, we'll pretty much starve.

today my task was pumpkin pasta with bacon.  it's not a hard recipe.  fry up chopped up bacon, drain it on a plate, saute chopped onion and garlic, add canned pumpkin, broth and cream, simmer until slightly thicken, then add cooked pasta, sprinkle with bacon, then a little bit of parm cheese.

i planned on making lunch while the kiddos were taking their morning nap.  instead, i wound up putting them in the pack n play, and napping myself for an hour and a half (i hit my wall for the week, okay?).  they woke up when i started to cook, so i brought them out to the kitchen.  bad idea.

first of all, the high chairs are in the dining room (they are seats that are fastened to chairs, not a big HC).  i wasn't about to drag these 2 chairs to the kitchen.  petunia succeeded in pulling the bacon package out of the trash (cos i forgot to close the can).  nearly tripped over freddie a couple of times.  decided it was safer to put them in the living room on the other side of the gate so they could watch me cook.  both screamed for 5 minutes (even tho they could see me) until they started fighting over blocks.  ah, sibs.

thank goodness it's a simple recipe.  voila!

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a bowl of pumpkiny bacon goodness.  then i forgot to add the parm cheese.  no biggie.


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messy girl.


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freddie's a neater eater.  and not much of a fruit eater.


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i felt pretty whipped after cooking and feeding the kiddos.  while cleaning up, i found the butter all mucked up.

i could not figure out how the butter got dented since breakfast.  then i remembered that petunia had mucky hands when i caught her with the bacon wrapper.  i assumed it was from the bacon wrapper.  here she really had a handful of butter, and that's what was on her block, too.  i also thought i heard disembodied children's voices in the refrigerator until i realized it was the neighbor kids from up the street.  that just shows you how freakin' tired i was today.  


i used rachael ray's pumpkin pasta recipe, except i left out the sage and added the bacon.  it seems to me the recipe i'm thinking of is one by martha from her magazine, but i couldn't find the recipe in my binder, and i didn't have the energy to go digging through the everyday food books or my lunch box recipe card holder.

this recipe makes a lot - the kiddos ate most of my bowlful.  they weren't big fans of the bacon (mostly the squishy pieces).  it's an awesome recipe for fall.  you can omit the bacon and use sausage (that's another recipe i saw online) and can switch up the pasta (i used corkscrews instead of penne, cos that's all i had).  and it's a healthy change from the regular old mac n cheese.

1 comment:

  1. This sounds good. I just printed out the recipe. I think the boys might eat it. My little one is picky, picky, picky.

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