Recipe: Herb-roasted Butternut Squash with Chicken Apple Sausage

With holiday parties and potlucks starting, I wanted to share a recipe I made for my Stanford Womens Alumni Club neighborhood potluck dinner this week. This group is the most vibrant, lovely gathering of women alum of all ages. I love the intergenerational exchange of stories, heated discussions on current happenings, and delicious sharing of favorite recipes!

When the invite came I thought of winter squash and apples since both are in season. In the past, I’ve roasted butternut squash halves with an Italian sausage and apple filling, so was considering something similar. A recipe search, however, turned up the following dish which takes the squash and roasts it cubed, along with plenty of herbs and pieces of pre-cooked sausage. It’s a tasty recipe as is, but I wanted to add my own character. I used truffle oil, lots of the fresh herbs and additional dry herbs as well, tossed in apples along with some shallots (I adore them roasted and thought it would be a bigger crowd pleasure than garlic), used the chicken apple sausage as suggested, and gave the whole thing a big sprinkling of black truffle salt.

This recipe is versatile, healthy, and can be made ahead so it’s a good one for all the upcoming festivities! Any mix of things could be tossed in really. It would be great also with red peppers, broccoli, other squashes or sweet potatoes, etc… I doubled the quantity for our group of 10, and the roasting time increased to about 45 minutes so beware you may have to adjust your cooking time. Enjoy!

Herb-Roasted Sausages and Butternut Squash
Adapted from Bon Appétit, December 2003

Yield: Makes 4 servings

Ingredients
6 cups 3/4-inch cubes peeled butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 pound purchased fully cooked sausages (such as chicken and apple), cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
8 garlic cloves (or 6 shallots, peeled)
3 tablespoons flavored olive oil (such as roasted pepper or herb, I used truffle oil) or regular olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Preparation
Preheat oven to 450°F. Combine squash and next 6 ingredients in large roasting pan. Toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast until squash is tender and sausage is warmed through, stirring once, about 30 minutes.

Transfer squash and sausages to platter. Drizzle with vinegar and serve.

Eat Your Broccoli

Amazingly flavorful recipe for one of the most nutritious veggies out there, this was a huge favorite of mine from school so far. You can use any mix of nuts you'd like rather than sticking with pecans only.

Ingredients
PECANS
2 Tbs orange zest
¼ tsp sea salt
1 ½ Tbs maple syrup
2 tsp grapeseed oil
¼ tsp red pepper flakes
¼ tsp grated ginger
2 cups pecans

BROCCOLI
2 heads broccoli
½ tsp sea salt
2 Tbs rice vinegar
2 Tbs tamari
1 Tbs mirin
½ tsp sesame oil, toasted
1 tsp maple syrup
1 Tbs sesame oil, untoasted
1 pinch red pepper flakes
3 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbs minced ginger
2 medium scallions, minced

Procedure
1 TO MAKE PECANS: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the zest, salt, maple syrup, oil, red pepper flakes and ginger in a small bowl and whisk until well blended.

2 Put the nuts in a bowl and pour in the coating mixture. Mix well until the pecans are well coated. Arrange in a single layer on a sheet pan. Bake about 12 minutes until fragrant. Remove and cool to room temperature, they will crisp as they cool. Almonds or walnuts may be substituted for pecans.

3 Remove the florets from the broccoli. Peel the stems until smooth and slice into bite sized pieces. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the salt. Blanch the broccoli for 1 minute. Transfer broccoli into a bath of ice water to stop cooking. Strain and reserve. Pat dry with paper towels.

4 Mix vinegar, tamari, mirin, toasted sesame oil and maple syrup together and reserve.

5 Heat a wok over high heat. Add sesame oil, red pepper flakes, ginger, garlic, and scallions. Stir fry until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

6 Add the sauce mixture and simmer until thickened, another 30 seconds or so. Add broccoli and heat through, about 15 seconds. Toss with some zesty pecans and serve right away.

Servings: 12
Author: From "One Bite at a Time" by Rebecca Katz

Commuting with Cauliflower

I started to tease Shannon about showing up carrying heads of lettuce by the second week of class. We commute together. She works two blocks from me and lives out my way also, a perfect setup since we come from our offices and drag our disheveled, chef-uniformed selves home after each long day of work and class. Between parking downtown, bridge toll, and gas it's saving us (and the environment) a bundle. But the most valuable part of our setup, to me, is commuting with Shannon herself.

I mean, who shows up constantly carrying lettuce? Shannon is probably the only person I know who is more into farmers markets than me. She frequents the little weekday markets downtown. And during weekend spare hours, Shannon volunteers at the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers Market. While she was at Stanford, like me, Shannon worked on "The Farm," coaxing vegetables out of the arid campus soil. She's developed a passion for sustainable agriculture, one of the main factors that drove her to Bauman, and makes her a die-hard farmer fan (you'd never find her in the TJs or Safeway produce sections).

But I've come to realize, now that we're really getting to know each other, that Shannon actually commutes with cauliflower mostly. Last week she raved about the price/weight ratio of the one she'd found that afternoon at the market and confessed her addiction. If it were me I'd have half the thing sitting around still after two weeks (I tried to lift it, it was heavier than your average bowling ball), but today she showed up again with a whole new cauliflower.

Commuting with cauliflower is fine if you drive it from one place to the next. But let me tell you, leaving cauliflower in a car for four hours gets stinky (and it was my car we drove today). I do like cauliflower though and I trust Shannon's expertise. So next time I pick some up I will make it the way Shannon suggests... by roasting it in a high heat oven (425 I think) with Indian spices and coconut oil, topped with herbs (cilantro ideally), nuts (especially pine nuts) and onions (either diced red or chopped green work). Maybe Shannon will be kind enough to post the actual recipe since she's the expert!

Coming soon... picture of Shannon with cauliflower (the two pictured separately will have to do for now). And by the way that stuff Shannon is sniffing is white truffle oil, which also happens to go very well with cauliflower.