butternut squash | Starbright's Adventure

Autumn produce is all about comfort food, and butternut squash is the key ingredient for the season’s best recipes.

This month, I teamed up with Melissa’s Produce to come up with some recipes using their new fall line of produce. Melissa’s Pinterest page is positively captivating, and it was hard to narrow it down to a few different types of recipes. I decided to make a full dinner — soup and a hearty entrée — but first, I needed to get into that squash.

The best and easiest way to get the most out of your hard-skinned winter squashes — from pumpkins to butternut squash to red kuri — is to cut them into manageable pieces and roast or grill them. Once the pieces are cool, the rinds come off really easily and you can use the squash for anything.

I usually roast one or two at the same time, then keep the chunks in the fridge to use in soups, salads, stir-frys, even desserts. Just check out all of the recipes that other local food bloggers came up with for this challenge, below!

Using the box of produce from Melissa’s, I decided to make a full meal, including a hearty soup and a fast-cooking spin on a classic cassoulet.

Spicy Butternut Squash Soup

1/2 medium butternut squash, roasted and cubed
1 Granny Smith apple, diced
2 tbsp ghee or butter
2 shallots, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 quart vegetable stock
2 tbsp. red Thai curry paste (*or 1 small can of tomatillo salsa for milder flavor)
handful of fresh pine nuts, toasted
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
2 tbsp sour cream for garnish

After the butternut squash is roasted and peeled, cook the pieces in a pot with butter or ghee as well as the garlic and apple. (Sautee the shallots in a separate pan and set aside when caramelized.) When the garlic/apple/squash mixture is heated thoroughly, add the curry paste and stock, and bring to a boil.

(*Note: Thai curry paste is very spicy. If you’re serving people who are sensitive to too much heat, substitute 1 can of green tomatillo salsa for the red curry paste. You’ll still get the peppery flavor without all the burn.)

Once the soup has been brought to a boil, cover the pot, turn the heat down, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until smooth, then add in the grated cheese and 1 tablespoon of sour cream. Mix thoroughly.

When serving, add a dollop of sour cream, and garnish with the caramelized shallots and toasted pine nuts.

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For the entrée, we have an awesome quick cassoulet. Traditionally a cassoulet is a French peasant dish made with pheasant, mutton, and frankly, whatever meat and beans were available. Traditionally, it’s also slow cooked for upwards of 4-6 hours, using dried beans and employing fancy French cooking pots. Mine uses a simple cast-iron skillet and is heavy on the hearty, fall vegetables and pre-steamed beans from Melissa’s. So, instead of taking 6 hours, my recipe takes less than two hours total – including all of the chopping. Perfect for a cold weeknight.

Fall Vegetable Cassoulet

1/2 medium butternut squash, roasted and cubed
1 package of pre-steamed chickpeas
4-5 baby yellow Dutch potatoes
1 package of your favorite breakfast sausage (I used one with sage and pork)
1 boneless chicken breast, cubed
1 red onion, diced
3-4 carrots, diced
3-4 shallots, diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, diced
4 slices of bacon, chopped (I used my homemade bacon)
salt and pepper
2 cups chicken stock
1 sprig of fresh rosemary, chopped
2-3 chives, diced
3-4 tbsp olive oil

Slice, dice and chop all of your vegetables. Add olive oil to your deep-dish cast-iron pan and start to caramelize the carrots, shallot, garlic and onion with the chicken breast, bacon and sausage. Sautee for about 5-10 minutes, until the meat is browned and the vegetables are cooked through, then mix in the chickpeas, butternut squash and potatoes.

Fill the pan with stock and bring to a boil, then cover, lower the heat, and let simmer for about 45 minutes. Try to not peek and let out all the steam — which will be hard to do when it starts to smell really good. When it’s ready, the liquid will have mostly cooked out, and what’s left will be a thick sauce. Serve with diced chive for garnish.

I’ve never really been a fan of pre-prepared produce before, but I am starting to change my mind. After taking a peek at the delicious pre-steamed blackeyed peas, chickpeas and fava beans, I had to take full advantage. The pre-steamed chickpeas turn allowed me to make a slow-cooked classic in less than a couple of hours, and this awesome, super-fast warm potato salad.

Quick Warm Potato Salad

1 package of Melissa’s pre-steamed, peeled baby potatoes
5 slices of bacon (try homemade bacon)
2 shallots, diced
salt and pepper
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp sour cream

Dice the bacon and cook in a cast-iron pan with a pat of butter. Once the bacon is browned (not fully cooked, but close), add the shallots, more butter and the pre-steamed potatoes. Brown the potatoes on all sides for about 2 minutes on each side and season with salt and pepper while cooking.

Remove from heat and put in a bowl with more butter, feta cheese and sour cream. Toss briskly and serve immediately.

Disclaimer: Melissa’s Produce graciously provided most of the produce I used in this post, but no other financial consideration was given for my opinions or ideas.

Last week, I got a big butternut squash in my CSA box and wasn’t sure what to make with it. Someone on the October Unprocessed Facebook page recommended tossing it into a chili.

I am a huge fan of chili, particularly in the cooler months … it seems to go so well with football and cold, windy weather; but also with cold beers and slices of watermelon in the summertime.

I have found in my years that people who are into chili take their chili very seriously and like it a certain, specific, personal way. Some people don’t like beans in their chili, some don’t like the meat. Luckily, chili is also one of the most easily adaptable dishes in the world. I don’t think I have ever made it exactly the same way twice.

Personally, my signature chili is with ground meat (beef, turkey, lamb, pork, or a mixture) and beans (usually more than one kind). It always has tomatoes (canned and/ or fresh) and usually has corn, and depending on the style, has some sort of chili pepper in it. Since this one is already packed with levels of flavor, I didn’t want to overdo the spiciness, so I used dried chili powder to taste and chopped sweet peppers. Also I would usually load a bowl of chili up with sour cream and grated cheddar, maybe even served over the contents of a bag of Fritos. This month I am doing the October Unprocessed challenge, so I am just eating it “plain” … if you can call this plain. It’s not.

But chili is a personal thing; if you don’t want meat in your chili, or you don’t want the beans, or you would rather have a wicked hot jalapeno pepper, then by all means, adapt this recipe to your tastes. This is just my way. I basically adapted my standard chili recipe to include the squash and some other Autumn-y flavors.

Seriously I think this is the best chili I’ve ever made.

A note about how to get into that butternut squash: Some of you may recall that last year, when I first ventured into cooking fresh pumpkins, how happy I was to have discovered an easy way to get the most out of the gourds. I pretty much have used the same technique with Red Kuri squash, pumpkins, and now butternut squash. Basically, if you have a type of squash with a very hard peel, and you are using it for the meat inside (as opposed to say, a baked acorn squash where you just stuff the squash and leave the gourd intact), it’s super-simple: cut it as much as you can, into workable chunks, and then broil, grill or roast it.

Personally, I use my outdoor grill to roast the squash, mostly because it’s fast, simple to use, and doesn’t require turning my oven on (which always makes my apartment really hot — even in the fall, it’s too much). So I hacked the butternut squash into 4-5 hunks, and put them, dry, on my grill over high heat for about 30 minutes. Keep an eye on them if you roast them over an open flame like that, or do them in your oven for about 30-45 minutes, or until they get a little bit soft (but not too soft).

Once the pieces of squash have cooled a little, the peel will come off very easily.

Butternut Squash and Beef Chili

(*Feel free to omit the beef and use vegetable stock only to make this totally vegetarian)

1 butternut squash, roasted and peeled (see above for tips)
1 lb ground beef*
1 large onion, diced
4-5 cloves garlic, diced
3-4 sweet peppers, diced
1 large can of stewed tomatoes
1 can sweet yellow corn
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 can white beans
1 can black beans
1 small can of tomato paste (about 8 oz)
1 bottle of good beer
1 quart vegetable* or beef stock (or both)
2-3 fresh sage leaves, chopped
2 tbsp. each of cumin and coriander
2 tbsp. chili powder (omit or reduce if you don’t like it spicy)
2 tbsp. dried parsley
salt and pepper
fresh cilantro, as a garnish

By the time my squash was roasted and cooled, I had already started to brown about a pound of ground beef, a few diced cloves of garlic, and a diced onion in a big pot. Once the meat and onions cook down a little, add the diced carrot, a diced, peeled sweet potato, and the cans of corn, tomato and beans. Mix together well and add chopped sage and other spices, then add the beer and stock. Make sure there is a lot of liquid (it might even look like too much, but don’t panic), then add the tomato paste and squash, and bring to a boil.

Once the whole mixture has reached a boil, cover the pot, reduce to a simmer, and let it simmer for at least 2 hours. The liquid – which might have seemed excessive earlier — has now been absorbed and it should be nice and thick.