This post was created with America’s Dairy Farm Families and Importers, in partnership with the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy. However, the views and opinions included are my own.

A few weeks ago I spent a morning at Milk-A-Way Dairy, a dairy farm just a couple hours from my house. In just a few hours I had such an eye opening and educational experience, learning so much about dairy farming, the families and people behind it and the cows themselves.

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Ahhhh, the 7-layer dip. The dip everyone gravitates too at a party, right? I’m a fan that’s for sure.

For some reason though, I have a hard time keeping it at just 7 layers. But this time I did. Only because I didn’t have layers 8 & 9 (which happen to be shredded lettuce and sliced jalapenos usually).

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Does anyone else feel like they are being swallowed up alive by the holidays? Man, it just gets SO busy this time of year. There’s just so much to do…some of it being obvious obligations like work and school, but there’s also so much other fun stuff going on that’s it’s so hard to fit it all in (and when you do then your house looks like a tornado hit it and you’re eating out almost every night). I was talking with a friend this morning and we were both saying how ‘overwhelmed’ was exactly what we didn’t want to be feeling 10 days before Christmas. We have talked the last few weeks about staying ahead of the game, not over committing ourselves, enjoying the moments, taking the time for reflection and family, but here we are…feeling overwhelmed. Sigh.

If you can relate, I’m sorry, but I just don’t know what to tell ya.

I guess all we can do is take a few deep breaths, wrap some gifts to get them off the list and make pasta. Because we all know pasta is the easiest and quickest way to get dinner on the table when you just don’t have it in ya to get dinner on the table.

Seriously…make this pasta. Your kids and husband will gobble it up. And so will you. If you don’t have kids or a husband, then you can have extra. Lucky lucky…

Bowties with Creamy Pumpkin and Parmesan

Yield: serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 box whole wheat (or regular) bowtie pasta
• 2-3 tablespoons butter
• 3/4 15 oz can pumpkin puree (that’s what I had, but I would not have a problem using whole can next time)
• 3 tablespoons light sour cream or Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup pasta water, reserved
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
• freshly grated Parmesan cheese (lots of it!)
• coarse salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Cook pasta according to directions. When pasta is cooked, set aside 1/4 cup of pasta water before draining pasta. After draining pasta, put back into pot used for cooking.
   Add butter, pumpkin, sour cream or Greek yogurt, and pasta water to pot. Gently stir until combined and creamy. Season well with salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Serve with a freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!

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