Tag: butternut squash

Salad bag pesto and butternut squash lasagne

~ Sophie ~ Leave a comment

It’s got stripes of orange and green! And it’s flipping delicious! There’s literally no down side. Feeds 4.

This recipe is multi-stage, but every step is very simple and the end result is fully worth it, promise.

It’s also endlessly adaptable, so the perfect way to use up leftover odds and ends of nuts, fresh-but-floppy herbs and a slightly-past-its-best bag of salad. Especially as bagged salads are one of the most wasted foods in Britain, with over half of them ending up in landfill. This recipe is inspired by and dedicated to the bloody extraordinary Jack Monroe.

  • 1 butternut squash, deseeded and peeled
  • 1 head of garlic, cloves separated but unpeeled
  • Nutmeg
  • 3 tbsp veg oil
  • 100g bag of salad (I like a rocket, spinach and watercress combo, but anything will work as long as it’s not iceberg)
  • 100g nuts, toasted gently in a dry pan until golden (I prefer a combination of almonds and pine nuts but, again, it can be anything you like/have leftover)
  • Handful of fresh herbs (parsley is good, or basil, a bit of dill or mint. Not so much the hard herbs like rosemary)
  • 2 tsp garlic oil
  • 50ml olive oil
  • 30g parmesan, grated
  • 200g mascapone
  • 100g cream cheese
  • 60ml milk
  • 7 pucks frozen spinach, defrosted and liquid squeezed out through a sieve
  • 50g cheddar, grated
  • 250g fresh pasta sheets
  • Salt and pepper
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C fan (200C)
  2. Quarter the butternut squash from top to bottom, and slice into thin pieces around ½ cm wide
  3. Chuck the slices into a baking tray with the unpeeled garlic cloves, then drizzle over the veg oil and season with salt, pepper and a few scrapes of nutmeg
  4. Mix well and then stick in the oven for 30-40 mins until the squash is tender and soft
  5. Take out and pop on the side to cool a bit. Then squeeze the garlic out of its skin and back into the pan. Use a potato masher to roughly crush the squash and garlic together. You’re after a chunky mash, not a smooth puree
  6. Meanwhile, tip the salad into a bowl, add the herbs, toasted nuts, garlic oil, olive oil and a large pinch of salt
  7. Use a hand blender to whizz it into a bright green, fragrant pesto – don’t blitz it into oblivion, you still want a bit of texture
  8. In another bowl, mix the mascapone, cream cheese, spinach and milk. Season with salt and pepper (and a bit more nutmeg wouldn’t go amiss here too)
  9. Now you’re ready for construction! Get yourself a deep oven dish roughly the size of your lasagne sheets – I like glass so I can see the layers through the side, but ceramic would work just as well. (My lasagne sheets need soaking in cold water for 2 mins before using, so do that too if you need to)
  10. Spoon half the crushed squash and garlic into the bottom of the dish, smoothing out to an even layer. Top with a lasagne sheet. Then half the pesto, spreading it out to a fairly even layer. Then a lasagne sheet. Then half the mascapone spinach mixture, smoothing that out fairly flat and sprinkling with half the grated cheese. Then a lasagne sheet, press down gently and start all over again. Squash – pasta – pesto – pasta – mascapone + cheese – until you’ve finished everything up and ended with a layer of grated cheese on top.
  11. Stick in the oven for 40 mins until the pasta is silkily soft, the sides are bubbling enticingly, and the top is crusty and bronzed
  12. Leave to stand for 5 mins before eating if you can bear to, just to avoid burning your mouth.

If you want to make it in advance, you can make it earlier in the day all the way up to the final stint in the oven. Cover and keep in the fridge til you’re ready for it.

Butternut squash and sweet potato soup

~ Sophie ~ Leave a comment

Soup-erb. Fragrant, warm and deeply comforting. Feeds 4.

  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, sliced
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 1 small butternut, peeled, deseeded and diced
  • 1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
  • ¾ tsp ground cinnamon
  • ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 chicken stock cube
  • Salt and pepper
  1. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat
  2. Cook the onion and garlic for 5 or 6 mins until soft
  3. Add the diced butternut squash and sweet potato and stir together
  4. Cook for a couple of mins then add the spices, seasoning and the stock cube
  5. Stir together, before pouring over around a pint of boiling water to just cover the contents of the pan
  6. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 15-20 mins until the squash and sweet potato is soft when you poke it
  7. Use a wand blender to whizz the soup until smooth, then check the seasoning and serve. Maybe with a little dollop of plain yoghurt or creme fraiche in the middle and some crusty bread on the side.

Butternut squash risotto

~ Sophie ~ Leave a comment

Lip-smackingly good. Simple to make but gifts you half an hour when you can’t do anything but stir, patiently and calmly. That’s got to be good for your soul, and so is eating it. Feeds 4.

  • 1 butternut squash
  • 1 tsp dried oregano (or ½ tsp dried sage)
  • ½ tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tbsp veg oil
  • 1 tbsp salted butter
  • 120g smoked pancetta or bacon, cut into little cubes
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 280g risotto rice
  • 250ml white wine
  • 800ml chicken stock
  • 30g parmesan, grated
  • Squeeze of lemon
  • Salt and black pepper
  1. Heat the oven to 180C fan (200 C)
  2. Peel and de-seed the squash, cutting the flesh into small cubes (keep them bite-sized, around 2cm)
  3. Tip the squash onto a large baking tray in a single layer. Add the oil, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix together with your hands to coat the squash
  4. Roast for 30-40 mins until soft and brown round the edges
  5. When there’s about 20 mins to go on the squash, start the risotto
  6. Heat the chicken stock in a pan next to where you’re going to cook the risotto. Just a simmer is fine. If it boils, turn it down or off
  7. In a large, heavy-handed saucepan, melt the butter over a medium heat and then fry the pancetta cubes until they’re golden
  8. Add the onion and garlic and turn the heat down. Cook until soft, around 5-8 mins
  9. Turn the heat up to medium-high and pour in the rice
  10. Turn it over in the buttery, bacony onions for a minute. You’ll see the edges of the rice go clear and you’ll hear it crackle
  11. Pour in the wine and stir in. It will disappear almost immediately
  12. Add a ladleful of chicken stock and stir in. Keep stirring constantly, moving the rice around and getting all the way into the corners. As the stock disappears into the rice – so you can draw the spoon across the bottom of the pan and it leaves a clear line for a moment – add more stock a ladle at a time
  13. Keep the heat medium-high, and keep stirring and adding stock until the rice is cooked. If you run out of stock, just use water from a freshly boiled kettle. It will take roughly 20 mins. Don’t stop stirring!
  14. Turn off the heat. Stir in the roast butternut squash, parmesan, lemon and a bunch of black pepper. Stick the lid on and leave alone for 5 mins. Check for seasoning and add salt if needed. The stock, bacon and cheese can be quite salty so you may not need it. The texture of the cooked rice should be firm and a bit chewy, but not chalky. The sauce should be rich, coating the grains. And the risotto should be loose enough to spread into the bowl. It shouldn’t sit there in a stodgy lump, but spread out oozily. If its too thick, add a bit of boiled water and stir in
  15. Serve immediately, with a waft of chopped parsley on top if you like.

If you want to make the dish vegetarian, just leave out the bacon and add some toasted pine nuts at the end.