Butternut Squash Pizza with Pancetta, Goat Cheese, and Sage

How embarrassing that I’m almost late for my own event! This month has been busy with cookies, cookies, and more cookies, and somehow along the way I forgot that I needed to post for Grow Your Own. It would have been doubly embarrassing since I’m hosting this round. The deadline for posting is December 15, and as long as I get an email from you with all the appropriate information you can still join us.

My inspiration for this pizza comes from my adopted blogger Jennifer at Palate to Pen. She made a butternut squash pizza with prosciutto and white sauce, and the very thought of it had me drooling and dreaming up what else to do with a butternut squash pizza topping. For this pizza I cut the squash into small chunks, thinly sliced a few shallots, tossed it with fresh from the garden sage chiffonade and some olive oil, then roasted it for about 15 minutes in the convection oven until the squash was soft and the shallots glistened. While that was roasting I cooked up some Pancetta and drained it on a paper towel. I cooked it about one minute too long, and I suggest watching it carefully. You want it to render a good amount of fat so it doesn’t linger on the pizza, but not get it too crispy before it goes into the oven. About any pizza dough will do, though I like to use either Peter Reinhart’s dough or a quick whole wheat dough, and we prefer our pizza cooked on a baking stone or on the grill for a nice crispy crust.

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Squash Soup with Saffron and Ginger and Hugs for Barbara

I first found Barbara of Winos and Foodies through her Taste of Yellow event, a celebration of surviving cancer. Barbara really tugged at our hearts with her determination to beat cancer and for taking positive steps to raise cancer awareness, and many of us have participated in Taste of Yellow for the past two years.

Barbara is fighting again with a massive round of chemotherapy, and she’s got a long road ahead. Bron of Bron Marshall and Ilva of Lucullian Delights organized some virtual hugs for Barbara as a way for us to let her know we support her, even if we can’t be there in person. For my hug, I wanted to send Barbara some comfort food: a squash soup with saffron to lift her spirits and fresh ginger for her appetite. This vegan soup calls for light coconut milk though you can use soy milk if you prefer, and yes, the cilantro is optional.

Bron and Ilva are keeping track of all the hugs for Barbara, so please visit them for links to all the posts. And make sure you read Barbara’s touching post with her thanks.

More Squash Recipes

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Slow Cooker Squash Stew with Garbanzo Beans and Red Lentils

Our kitchen counter is covered with five different types of squash, a few steps up from our normal routine of acorn and butternut squash. On my last squash run, I came home with sweet dumpling, delicata, buttercup, acorn, and butternut and plans for all of them, mostly revolving around roasting and soups. And of course I wanted some photos of the squash pile.

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Roasted Acorn Squash with Apples, Nuts, and Sage

Side dish or dessert? I remember the first time I ordered a side of roasted acorn squash in a restaurant, and I commented on how it was more like dessert than an entree. The restaurant served it with butter and brown sugar, and I had no need for dessert after enjoying that treat. Though I like the sweet treatment with squash, for a meal I prefer a mixture of sweet and savory. Sage is a good flavor to add to roasted squash, and I pulled some fresh from the garden for this preparation. Our sage is still going strong, though we’ve had some freezing nights, and I will have to cut it soon to freeze or dry for the winter.

The boys kept peering through the oven window as the squash baked and they demanded tastes as soon as it came out of the oven, though I managed to hold them off for a few minutes explaining how hot it was. The whole time I was trying to get a photo of one half, they were raiding the other, nipping bites here and there.

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Roasted Butternut Squash with Penne

Winter root vegetables are still available in this area, though the quality is starting to suffer as we near the end of the winter stores. I’ve passed them by for weeks now, waiting to find one that still looked good and felt firm, but perhaps I was a little too choosy with a few that I looked at. I finally found one last week that looked like a winner, and I excitedly brought it home with a plan to surprise Michael with a different spin on baked pasta and hopefully create something that my picky little eaters would enjoy. Michael really liked it and took some to work for lunch for several days. My toddler devoured it and asked for more and created some great photo opportunities with the orange sauce all over his face, hands, hair, and clothes! (I’ll save him future embarrassment by not posting those photos here.)

The sauce reminded me of the soup I made last fall, another squash dish we really enjoy. We like the sage and thyme paired with squash, though I’m not so fond of the “woolly” kind of sage I find in this area. I need to find a plant or some seeds for a type that has a smoother texture for my tastes. The thyme came from our kitchen garden.

Roasting the squash before making the sauce gives it a slightly nutty flavor that we really like, though if you can’t find a good one at this time of year you can use an equal amount of frozen winter squash instead. To make this a vegan dish, use vegetable stock and soy milk and sprinkle the top with fresh bread crumbs. Read more

Roasted Butternut Squash Puree with Ginger

I’ve been roasting squash all during the month of November, and every time I use up all the squash in my kitchen, more seems to magically appear. Well, actually I just get more because I keep thinking of ways to use it. This gingered puree was an experiment that turned out pretty well. Originally I used 1 1/2 teaspoons of fresh grated ginger, but we felt that it overpowered the sweetness of the squash, so a teaspoon seemed to work quite nicely. This will make a delicious side dish for a Thanksgiving meal, or any night of the week.

This Thanksgiving side dish is my contribution to Sunita’s monthly event, Think Spice. This month’s spice is ginger, which I think pairs fabulously with the roasted squash. Make sure you check out the round-up the first week in December. Read more

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