Butternut Squash Gnocchi

Last month, on a rare day off, I indulged myself in some down time and a bit of cooking.  Having spent the afternoon drinking coffee I returned home and knocked up a batch of butternut squash gnocchi.  I originally assumed that I would only have enough for one meal but I was wrong.  There were plenty of little dumplings for Z and I, and even more to be frozen for another day.

That day was today.  Gnocchi are superb fast food* and cook in under five minutes.  We tossed them in pesto and had a nice salad to go with them.  I now have no gnocchi in the house so I'll be making more soon.  I'd be interested to hear how you like to serve yours.

*once you have made them.

Butternut Squash and Chickpea Stew

When I told Mum what we were having for tea tonight she said "That sounds a bit vegetarian".  She was of course correct.  It is vegetarian, but we had the ingredients in the house and, although it has a relativity long cooking time, it's not very labour intensive.

The recipe is actually one of Simon Rimmer's from Something for the Weekend and although it is billed as a winter warmer I think it's fine as a summer supper.  The original recipe also has a potato scone topping but I have discarded that for this evening in favour of some boiled new potatoes.

Roasted butternut squash was added to fried onions, leeks and garlic.  A glass of white wine is poured into the pan and brought to the boil before the chickpeas, sour cream and double cream are added.  The mixture is then simmered for five to ten minutes.  The one ingredient that I didn't have from Mr Rimmer's recipe was tarragon.  I added parsley instead to add some freshness to the creamy sauce.  We all agreed that without the chickpeas this would make a great pasta sauce.  That said, I think I will have to cook something with meat in it tomorrow before a revolt takes place.

Butternut Squash Gnocchi

Now that my herculean task of working the evening shift and sometimes double shifts at work has ended, I am taking the opportunity to recharge my batteries.  Part of that unwinding began last night, being back in the kitchen and making fresh pesto.  That has continued today with yet more culinary shenanigans and some down time in one of Leeds' fantastic independent coffee shops, Brewbar Espresso.

This morning, having packed R off to nursery and Z off to work I cracked on with my plans for tonight's meal, butternut squash gnocchi.  Having roasted a butternut squash for pumpkin risotto, and made mashed potato for fish pie over the weekend I had leftovers of both.  I combined the squash and potato, added flour and an egg and got rolling.  To start with I didn't think that I would have enough to make a decent meal for Z and I, but I managed to make enough dumplings for two meals, so half of the mixture has ended up in the freezer for a future treat.

Chores out of the way, I headed into Leeds for lunch and a leisurely afternoon sipping coffee and catching up on some reading*.  Brewbar is a nice, relaxed coffee shop under Leeds library, the coffee is fantastic and the music, at least today, was somewhere between Regina Spektor and Mike Oldfield and that suited me fine.

Back home I returned to the gnocchi.  There isn't really a cooking time for gnocchi, they are cooked once they float to the top of a pan of boiling water.  I'm not a fan of heavy or thick sauces with gnocchi so I decided to keep it simple and make a brown butter sauce with sage.  It was a good job too, the addition of the butternut squash made the dumplings sweeter but also more dense than normal potato gnocchi.  I'm now looking forward to eating the second batch that are in the freezer.

*and writing blog posts for evening meals that had been missed.

Pumpkin Risotto

Last week we had one of the worst meals that we have ever cooked.  Pumpkin risotto is one of our favourites so when we had a really disappointing one that came in a package, celebrating national vegetarian week, I knew I would have to set things right by making one from scratch.  That is exactly what I did today.  I wouldn't normally go into as much detail as I am going to but the simplicity of a good risotto needs explaining.

I started by roasting half a butternut squash with a little olive oil, marjoram, salt and pepper for around forty minutes.  I also put some peeled garlic cloves in a puddle of olive oil in the squash's seed cavity.  Once cooked, the flesh was scooped out of the skin and roughly chopped.  The garlic infused olive oil was poured into my favourite risotto pan* and a finely chopped onion was added to soften.

After a couple of minutes of gently frying the onion I added some arborio rice and cooked that until all of the grains had been coated in the olive oil and had started to become translucent around the edges.  Next I added a glass of white wine and let that boil until it had reduced by half, before adding the first ladle of stock.  I happened to have some chicken stock in the freezer but you can use whatever stock you have to hand, for this risotto I'd go with either chicken or vegetable. 

Once the first ladle of stock had been absorbed by the rice I added the cooked flesh from the butternut squash and more stock.  I then kept adding the stock, one ladle at a time, stirring all the time and waiting until the last lot of liquid had been absorbed by the rice before adding the next ladle full.  Whilst cooking the risotto, the squash broke down so that the flavour was through the entire dish.  During the cooking process I also added lemon thyme, the garlic that had been roasted with the squash and salt and pepper.

Once all of the stock had been added and the rice was cooked, I added a couple of knobs of butter and a handful of parmesan cheese, turned off the heat, put the lid on the pan and left it alone for five minutes.  This last step has turned into a ritual.  After standing at the hob stirring constantly for twenty minutes or so it can feel like your arm is going to fall off.  The rest is really for the butter and cheese to mingle with the rest of the risotto but it's also a good chance for a welcome glass of wine and a brief sit down.  That five minutes was the same amount of time that it took to cook the packet risotto that left me feeling so cheated.  I took the opportunity to toast some pumpkin seeds and lay the table before serving.

This was as far from the last risotto as it could have been.  The rice, while cooked through, still had bite.  The sauce was creamy and oozing.  The seasoning was perfect and the individual flavours of the butternut squash, lemon thyme and garlic all shone.  The addition of pumpkin oil gave an additional background nuttiness, while toasted pumpkin seeds gave an extra texture.

I had already boycotted restaurant risottos after too many disappointing offerings.  I'll now be extending that boycott to include shop bought risottos too.  Especially when, with not much effort, meals as fantastic as tonight's pumpkin risotto can be made.

*we all have a favourite risotto pan right?

Vegetable Curry

There are occasions when you just need to use up all of those vegetables that are in the fridge.  I'm not advocating cooking without due care and attention.  I am advocating making the most of the food that is to hand.

After checking the store cupboards it was clear that a curry was the way forward.  I wouldn't call it an authentic curry but I did choose the spices with the vegetables in mind.  Most curries I cook start with mustard seeds but not tonight.  I felt that the flavour would have been to earthy and mask the sweetness of the veg.

The base of the sauce consisted of a finely chopped red onion, garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, turmeric and chilli.  These were fried together with a tomato which added liquid and thickened the mixture.  The first of the vegetables, butternut squash, along with a tin of chick peas and some water was added and left to simmer until tender.

The curry was then finished with a tin of coconut milk some leftover roast sweet potato and two bunches of spinach.  If I had planned this curry and been out to buy the ingredients I probably would have omitted the squash and sweet potato.  I would have included paneer and fresh coriander and ended up with a completely different meal.  I'm glad I didn't because this curry was great.

Pumpkin Risotto

Tonight's challenge was to use the final foodie spoil from this weekends Cornucopia, Pumpkin Oil.  I knew that there would be a pumpkin oil vendor at the event from the pre-show media but I wasn't ready for how good it is.  I was expecting something on the lines of Rape Seed Oil. 

We all know rape seed oil is sustainable, good for you and locally produced.  But it is pricey and it doesn't really taste as inspiring as such an expensive product should.  I was right on a few of these points.  Pumpkin oil is sustainable, although it is imported from Slovenia, so if you're on a local food diet it's not for you.  It is good for you, high in those important Omega oils that we don't eat enough of.  It is pricey.  £4.50 for 100ml is more than I would normally pay for any oil.  Yet I still bought a bottle and it was well worth the cash.

I bought a bottle due to the incredible nutty favour.  If you have ever put roasted pumpkin seeds into a salad then you will have tasted something similar, but nowhere near as intense.  It is almost like liquid toast with peanut butter.  Forget the fact that it manages to be both red and green at the same time, that's just witchcraft.

When trying a new ingredient it's often easiest to use it in something that you can cook with your eyes closed, for me that means risotto.  I tried to keep the flavour of the risotto simple. I used a light vegetable stock, an onion and half a small butternut squash so that the sweetness of the pumpkin was through the dish.  I used the oil as a dressing along with some pumpkin seeds.  I am not exaggerating when I say a little goes a long way.  The nutty flavour really shone and the risotto was the best I had cooked for a long time.

Butternut Squash Risotto

One of the great things about butternut squash is that a good sized one will do you for couple of meals.  Earlier this week I used half a squash in a middle-eastern casserole and tonight I'm cooking one of my favourite meals, butternut squash risotto.  I would cook this more often, but it takes some time to prepare, so it's currently off the midweek menu.

The reason for the long cooking time is you have to roast the squash before you can even think about cooking he risotto, doubling the cooking time.  I don't normally go into detail about recipes but I feel that I need to open my heart with this one.  The flavours aren't your standard risotto fare but you can do what you want with risotto, honest.

Start by rubbing wedges of squash with oil, garlic, oregano and chilli flakes and roast them for 45 minutes until they have charred at the edges.  Remove the skins and eat them whilst cooking, these are some of the best chefs treats going.

The chopped roast butternut squash gets added to the risotto after the first ladle of stock so that it can collapse into the finished dish.  To finish add feta and pumpkin seeds for freshness and texture.

Middle-Eastern Sausage and Butternut Squash Casserole

Since taking on the allotment we have tried, with limited success, to grow a few varieties of squash.  Courgettes are no problem at all, they are too generous at times, but this isn't courgette season.  No matter how the shelves grown under their weight, I won't be eating any until my first harvest next year.

The winter squashes are still abundant and in season.  Each variety has a different texture and flavour and my favourite, Crown Prince, is huge and keeps well.  A decent one will happily provide four meals for a small family.   Despite this variety, our choices at the tills are less bountiful.  At least butternut squash is the one that has taken hold.  It is very versatile and has great flavour and texture unlike the harlequin squash which is sweet but granular.

For some reason the traditional "What are we having for dinner?" question was met with blank expressions all round this morning.  I wont bore you with the full inventory of the kitchen shelves, suffice to say a butternut squash* was in attendance.  We still have a surfeit of meat in the freezer from our last meat box delivery from Swillington Farm.  So in some stolen idle moments at work I trawled the internet for inspiration.

What I found was a shed-load of curry and soup** recipes.  Soup doesn't stand high in my evening meal charts and we've had curries lately.  I kept clicking my mouse until I found a recipe that I'll be returning to next summer, Middle-Eastern Broad Bean Stew.  It included butternut squash in the ingredient list.  A few tweaks later and tonight's menu emerged.  The Sausages from Swillington are Pork, Sage and Apple.  A savoury and sweet sausage that works well with the squash.  Sweet heat from harissa acted as a great foil for the two.

*in this house, also known as a pumpy-squash-fruit. Don't ask.
**check back next week for Today's Lunch if you are interested in soup.