Early Fall Food

Driving home from Portland today, I was thinking that quite possibly the reason that the leaves turn brilliant shades of yellows, orange and firey reds is to balance out the gray skies. To give us a little burst of color before we have to endure the darkness of winter. It's like a tease, the earth saying "look how beautiful I am" and then fading away to the baren, naked branches of the bitter winter cold, dark gloom. I am sure there are beautiful things about winter but the novelty wears quickly as the bitter, wet cold lingers in your bones for months. In order to counteract the bitterness we eat warm, comforting foods, sweeten our homes with baked treats that fill the air with spicy goodness. We have holidays centered around great meals that bring others into our homes to warm our hearts. Butternut squash is one of those warm and comforting flavors that we all love. Wether it is whipped up into a creamy soup, diced up and baked with sugar and cinnamon or stuffed with all kinds of tasty treats....

This recipe comes from one of my favorite past-times, laying in bed with a cookbook and a cup of tea. I was gazing upon one of Jamie Oliver's (The Naked Chef) cookbooks.....nice...the other night when I found this recipe.

I, of course, twisted it a bit due to availability of what was in the fridge and cupboard at the time. Here is the original recipe:

Hamilton Squash

Serves 4

1 small handful of dried porcini mushrooms

1 butternut squash, halved and seeds removed

olive oil

1 red onion finely chopped

1 clove of garlic finely chopped

1 teaspoon coriander seeds, pounded

a pinch or two of dried chili, to taste

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaved picked and finely chopped

5 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

sea salt and fresh ground pepper

3 1/2 oz basmati rice

1/2 handful of pine nuts, lighly roasted

First of all, soak your porcini for 5 minutes in 1/2 cup of boiling water. Preheat the oven to 450. Using a teaspoon, score and scoop out some extra flesh from the length of the squash (this is a pain, so I just used a pairing knife to cut out the squash and then scraped out the rest with a spoon). Finely chop this flesh with the squash seeds and add to a frying pan with 4 glugs of olive oil, the onion, garlic, coriander seeds, chili, rosemary and sun-dried tomatoes. Fry for 4 minutes until softened. Add the porcini and half their soaking water. Cook for a further 2 minutes before seasoning. Stir in your rice and pine nuts, pack the mixture tightly into the two halves of the squash and then press them together. Rub the skin of the squash with a little olive oil, wrap in foil and bake in the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes.

After re-writing this recipe, I noticed that I changed alot and left out alot of the ingredients. I used pre-cooked rice, the recipe said you didn't need to pre-cook, but I didn't want to risk chewy rice, and ruining the whole dish. I didn't have porcini, so I used button mushrooms, didn't have sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts, coriander and left out the chili. I didn't chop up the squash seeds either, I guess I forgot that step. I think if I made the recipe again I would use a wild rice mixture and use the sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts. The rosemary was the key ingredient in creating a really well balanced flavor with the butternut squash. If chantrelles are available, I would definitely use them, that would just make this recipe top notch! This was a delicious recipe and would love to include it in a meal with a roasted pork loin. If you are going vegetarian just toss up a green salad and serve it up.