Pumpkin Mac n'Cheese with Caramelized Onions & Apples

This recipe was supposed to be made with butternut squash puree.  I know I've seen cans of butternut squash puree in the grocery store before, but of course when I actually wanted to find it I couldn't.  I substituted pumpkin puree. 

I used my mandolin to slice the onions, so they would be very uniform in thickness and cook nice and uniformly.

I melted a tablespoon of butter to carmalize the onions in.  I used the technique from the Carmalized Onion tart I made last year.  It gave me such good results last time.  So started out with a lid.

While the onions were cooking I got started on the rest of the dish.  I grated the apple.

I got the pasta measured out and put the water on to boil.  I only had egg noodles, so that's what I used.

 

After about 10 minutes I took the lid off the onions.  They were soft and most of the liquid had cooked out.

After about another 10 minutes I had beautiful, brown, carmalized onions.

 

By now the noodles were cooking.

Once the noodles were done, I drained them and then mixed in the rest of the ingredients - pumpkin, evaporated milk, chicken broth, low-fat cream cheese, cheddar cheese, the onions and the apple. 

I left off the bacon, which I think was a mistake.  You need something to cut the creaminess of this dish.  It wasn't a problem for me because I decided I wanted some protein to go along with this so I added two links of turkey sausage to each serving.  It really went well with the pasta.  With the turkey sausage, this dish became a wonderful one pot dish. 

 

If I ever see the canned butternut squash puree in the grocery store again I'll have to make this again.