Tag: butternut squash

Butternut Squash Risotto

A rich and creamy Italian rice dish made with butternut squash puree, white wine, Parmigiano-Reggiano and topped with a little fresh arugula.

Happy Monday! Today I’m in chilly Minneapolis attending an
event for Target. They put together a fun agenda for members of the
Target Inner Circle which I’ll be sharing this week, you can follow my Instagram^[1] to see what I’m up to today.

This weekend I remade one of my older recipes with meatless Monday in mind, and updated the photos because this is such a great dish, but the photos didn’t do it justice.

Making risotto is a labor of love, because you have to be patient, stirring the rice and adding more broth a little at a time, but in the end you get a delicious restaurant quality dish that you can proudly say you made yourself, without all the added butter you would get if you ate this dish out. It’s also really filling, one serving will fill you up. If you wish serve it with a salad on the side and call it a meal.

This also makes a great side dish to fish or chicken, I would make the serving size 1/2 cup as a side dish.

I started with some homemade squash puree which I simply made by boiling the butternut squash in broth or water, then pureeing in the blender. You can use the rest for some Spaghetti with Creamy Butternut Leek Pasta^[2] later in the week.

I like to keep a good cheese such as Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano on hand and grate it myself when I need it. A good cheese has an intense flavor you just can’t get from the grated parmesan cheese sold on the shelves of the supermarket.

Butternut Squash Risotto
gordon-ramsay-recipe.com
Servings: 4 • Size: just under 1 cup • Old Pts: 5 pts • Weight Watchers Pts+: 7 pts
Calories: 249 • Fat: 3 g • Protein: 7.5 g • Carb: 45 g • Fiber: 1 g • Sugar: 1 g
Sodium: 461 mg

Ingredients:

3 cups fat free low-sodium chicken broth (use vegetable broth for vegetarian)
1 cup butternut squash puree
1 tsp butter or olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup shallots, chopped
1 cup arborio rice
2 oz dry white wine
1 tbsp fresh sage, minced
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste
2 cups fresh baby arugula, for garnish

Directions:

In a large saucepan, heat broth and butternut squash puree over medium-high heat. When it boils, reduce heat to a simmer and maintain over low heat, taste for salt and adjust as needed.

In a large heavy saucepan over medium heat, heat oil or butter until melted. Add shallots, garlic and rice; saute until the rice is well coated with oil or butter, about 3 minutes. Add the wine and sage and stir until it is absorbed.

Add a ladleful of the simmering stock; wait until it is absorbed before adding another ladleful stirring gently and almost constantly. Stirring loosens the starch molecules from the outside of the rice grains into the surrounding liquid, creating a smooth creamy-textured liquid.

Continue this process until the rice is creamy, tender to the bite, but slightly firm in the center and all the stock is used, about 25-30 minutes from the time you started. When all the liquid is absorbed, stir in the grated cheese and remove from heat.

Serve immediately and top with baby arugula and extra grated cheese if desired. Makes 3 2/3 cups.

References

^{^} Instagram (instagram.com)
^{^} Spaghetti with Creamy Butternut Leek Pasta (www.gordon-ramsay-recipe.com)

Butternut Squash Lasagne

I’m sure you get the picture now: Celebrate is a pretty good book and you ought to buy it if you like the sound of it.

But just for laughs here’s one last recipe from it, for a butternut squash lasagne, which is really great.

I don’t especially like butternut squash but I often feel, especially at this dark time of year, that one really ought to make an effort to vary one’s vegetable intake, or you can go for months just eating cheese on toast and baked beans.

This is a very good thing to do for an awful lot of people and it’s also, if this is a factor, incredibly cheap to make.

Don’t be scared of the white sauce involved in this (also called a bechamel). I will talk you through it. Now is as good a time as any to learn how to make one if you don’t know how already.

Butternut Squash Lasagne
Serves 8
this is not Pippa’s precise recipe, but it’s very close.

1 large onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1.2kg butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and sliced into crescents about 0.5cm thick (that’s about the width of a pound coin).
1 bunch sage leaves
4 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
450g fresh spinach
some nutmeg
salt and pepper
12-15 fresh or dried lasagne pasta sheets
2 x 125g balls mozzarella

for the white sauce or bechamel
125g butter
125g flour
800ml milk
75 grated parmesan, plus extra for sprinkling between layers of lasagne

Preheat the oven to 200C

1 Put the butternut squash, onion and garlic on a baking tray and sloop over some light olive oil, a generous scattering of salt and pepper and a small handful of chopped sage leaves. Roast for 20 mins.

2 NOW – make your white sauce.

– Melt the butter in a pan. I know it seems like a lot, but this is how much you need, so just go for it. That much butter takes a while to melt, about 5-10 mins.

– When the butter is melted TAKE THE PAN OFF THE HEAT and then add the flour, a tablespoon at a time. Mix and mash together between spoonfuls until you have a thick paste.

– WITH THE PAN STILL OFF THE HEAT, splash over some milk and incorporate. Then splash over some more until you have a runny concoction.

– Now put this back over a medium flame and add the rest of the milk, whisking all the time. Keep stirring and whisking until this gets very thick, then take off the heat and add the 75g parmesan. Throw in a good pinch of salt and about 6 turns of the pepper grinder.

3 Put the spinach in a pan with about 1 cm water in the bottom and grate over a bit of nutmeg, about three swipes of the nut on the grater ought to do it as nutmeg is terribly strong and too much ruins everything.

Cook this for about 5 minutes until the spinach has wilted. Then drain in a colander or sieve and really squash it down to get all the water out. I also usually have a go at it with a pair of scissors, just to make it look and seem a less like a tangle of dead leaves caught in a drain.

4 If you are using dried lasagne sheets, you now have to blanch them for 3 mins in boiling water. Now, the minute I put my sheets into boiling water they stuck together, causing me to panic and burn my fingers off later frantically unsticking them by sliding a knife between the layers.

I have no idea how one is supposed to do this without the lasagne sticking together. A lot of oil in the water or what? All suggestions welcome in the comments box.

5 Now assemble your lasagne. Put a layer of pasta on the bottom, followed by the butternut squash and onion and the spinach. Then white sauce, then a bit of parmesan. layer this as best you can, it doesn’t really matter what you end up with on top. Although if you finish with a layer of pasta, it’s wise to make sure you’ve got quite a lot of white sauce left otherwise the pasta crisps up in the oven and crunchy pasta is a bit of a challenging mouthful.

6 Finish this off with sliced mozzarella. Stick in the oven for 25-30 mins. You can fry off some sage leaves in butter and stick them on the top if you’re feeling really flash.

Alas, I just looked through my pictures and I can’t find the one I took of this lasagne. Though I’m absolutely sure I did take one. Anyway I’ve written it now and I’m not writing up another bloody recipe for something I HAVE got a photo of – I’ve got SNOW to play in!!!! So you’ll just have to imagine what it looks like.

Or buy Celebrate, it’s there on p. 30 looking splendid.

Honey roasted butternut squash and puy lentil salad

Goodtoknow TV

Free & easy recipe video: Watch new how-to recipe videos with goodtoknow and Woman’s Weekly see all videos >

This dish makes a hearty winter salad thats full of nutrients or it can be a perfect side dish to a main course. The delicious sweet and chewy honey roasted butternut squash goes perfectly with the slight crunch from the pumpkin seeds. A tasty combination with the creamy goats cheese and puy lentils. The butternut squash can be roasted in simple chunks or in lovely crescent shaped slices for a quirkier presentation. Go a step further and roast the butternut with garlic cloves, fresh thyme and rosemary leaves for a winter earthiness. Great served with crumbled blue cheese and toasted chopped walnuts to!

Serves: 2
Prep time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 30 mins
Total time: 40 mins
Skill level: Easy peasy
Costs: Mid-price

That’s goodtoknow

For something with a little more kick scatter the butternut squash with a tsp chilli flakes!

Ingredients

1 small butternut squash, peeled, deseeded & chopped
1tbsp olive oil
2tbsp honey
400g tin puy lentils, drained and rinsed
75g soft goats cheese
100g spinach leaves
3tbsp pumpkin seeds

Method

Pre-heat oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5. Place the butternut squash on a large baking tray, season well and toss in the olive oil. Roast for 20 mins before drizzling with the honey and returning to the oven for a further 10 mins until tender.
Toss gently with the puy lentils and goats cheese. Serve on a bed of spinach and scatter with the pumpkin seeds

By Mima Sinclair

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Nutritional information

Guideline Daily Amount for 2,000 calories per day are: 70g fat, 20g saturated fat, 90g sugar, 6g salt.

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Delia Smith is no longer the face of Waitrose but Heston Blumenthal will stay – whose food would you rather eat?

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