Smooth As Butter: Roasted Butternut Squash With Lentils and Stilton

How do you feel about butternut squash?  No, really.

For those of you who might shy away from the squash, consider the following: It is a fruit; who doesn’t love fruit? It is a healthy food; who doesn’t want to eat healthy?  It is inexpensive; who isn’t cheap  thrifty?  It’s not kale.

Dense and creamy, butternut squash is the product of a 1940s-era hybridization project by Charles Leggett of Stow, Massachusetts. He started with a gooseneck squash and the rest is history. The butternut got its name because, according to its early promoters, the interior flesh of the fruit is as smooth as butter and as sweet as a nut. Kinda corny but it works.

But…don’t you just hate to peel it?

While it’s true that butternut squash is hard to prep, it doesn’t have to be. Here is a link to an excellent piece from Eating Well Magazine that demystifies how to prepare the squash: Eating Well On Preparing Butternut Squash. Alternatively, you can poke holes in the raw squash’s skin and then microwave it for about five minutes to make it easier to peel. That’s what I do.

Here is a wonderful butternut squash recipe.

This recipe is adapted from one that appears in chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, Ottolenghi Simple. Israel-born and London-based, Ottolenghi is the author of a number of best-selling cookbooks including Plenty, Plenty More, Jerusalem and Sweet. Up until now, his recipes have been known for their inventiveness but also for their difficulty and for the long lists of hard-to-find ingredients. Ottolenghi Simple focuses on recipes that are quick to prepare, that involve short lists of ingredients and that can, in many cases, be made well in advance.

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Here is a link to Amazon where you can buy Ottolenghi’s book: Amazon.