Turkey with Pumpkin Sauce - 196

We were poking through the freezer and found the sliced turkey breast.

I was wondering what we would do with the full fall basket of pumpkins and gourds. I mean, it's December 16, and the very few Christmas decorations we've put out are overpowered by this enormous basket full of round orange and yellow members of the squash family.

I go through a couple of Mexican cookbooks, and most of the pumpkin recipes are for soups or desserts. No go - we need to use up the sliced turkey breast.

I decide to invent. Javier bakes the pumpkins in the oven until they are soft and pulpy. I scoop out the flesh, put it into the food processor and try to turn it into a smooth puree. (We are still waiting on a vital part to arrive in the mail for our blender, so everything has to be food processed these days). In the meantime, I re-hydrate some dried red chiles (ancho, guajillo y negro), then process them into the pumpkin pulp. I add a few seasonings and some chicken stock, and there it was - a pumpkin turned into a sauce for the turkey!

It was good, but would have been better had it been blended to a smoother puree in a blender. It looks like mole (which I'll be making later this weekend) but tastes more like seasoned pumpkin. It went well with the turkey.

Mashed potatoes? Sauteed mushrooms and squash? Yes, we're still cleaning out the refrigerator and cupboards. Don't worry about calories, though. I made both side dishes without butter, and only used 1/2 cup of chicken stock with the mashed potatoes (in addition to seasonings) and white wine with the mushrooms and squash along with garlic and a few green onions at the end!