Tag: squash

Griddled squash with feta, mint and chilli

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griddled squash

This is such a beautifully simple dish, inspired by a Nigella Lawson recipe from Nigella Summer. As Nigella says herself, it’s really more of an assembly job than cooking.

griddled squash3

The star of the original recipe is griddled aubergine but because we currently have a glut of yellow, patty pan squash in the garden, I thought I’d experiment by swapping the aubergine for squash. And I’m pleased to report it wasn’t a complete disaster. The griddled squash didn’t hold together quite as well as aubergine would have done, and so the end result probably wasn’t quite as pretty as it should have been, but it was stonkingly tasty nonetheless.

griddled squash2

The creamy filling of lemon-soaked feta partnered with chilli and mint is gloriously fresh and zingy, making this an incredibly moreish dish while being really rather healthy at the same time; a very good combination, if you ask me.

Griddled squash with feta, mint and chilli

1 large patty pan squash (or 2 large aubergines (thinly sliced lengthwise)
4 tbsp olive oil
250g feta cheese
1 large red or green chilli (finely chopped & deseeded)
1 bunch fresh mint (finely chopped – with extra for sprinkling)
juice of 1 lemon
black pepper

Preheat the barbecue or griddle to a high heat.

Toss the squash slices in the oil, and cook them for about 2 minutes on each side until golden and tender.

Crumble the feta cheese into a bowl and mix in the chilli, mint and lemon juice and a grinding of black pepper. Pile the end third of each warm squash slice with a heaped teaspoon of the mixture and roll each slice up as you go to form a stuffed bundle.

Place join side down on a plate and finish with a sprinkling of mint.

no-waste-food-badge

As this dish proved a great way to make sure my patty pan squash didn’t go to waste, I’m entering it into the No Waste Food Challenge from Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary, which this month is being hosted by I’d Much Rather Bake Than…

simple

 

Squash is very much in season, and so I’m also entering it into Ren Behan‘s Simple and in Season challenge, this month hosted by Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary.

spice trail badge square

I’m also entering it into my own Spice Trail challenge as the theme this month is Beach Barbecue.

And finally, despite not using the key ingredient aubergine, I’m also submitting it to Nigella’s Cookalong contest.

Three ways with butternut squash

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Lorraine Pascale muffins
Riverford risotto
My soup

A rather large butternut squash arrived in our veg box last week. So as well as making my usual soup, I thought I’d try out a couple of new recipes on the family.

The first of these was a Lorraine Pascale recipe I’d seen her do recently on TV – pumpkin and rosemary muffins.

Pumpkin and rosemary muffins from a Lorraine Pascale recipe

It’s a great recipe, ever so easy, and would definitely recommend you try it. My husband and I enjoyed the muffins one lunchtime. We had them warm, with a little butter and some mature Cheddar cheese on the side.

Unfortunately our daughters were  not so impressed to find them in their lunch boxes at school and nursery. I think perhaps the rosemary was too overwhelming a flavour for them. Oh well, you can’t win them all, but you’ve got to try!

So I put the remainder in the freezer and I look forward to enjoying them at some point, sans enfants.

I won’t write out the recipe for pumpkin and rosemary muffins here but instead direct you to the BBC Food website.

The muffins used about a quarter of the butternut squash. I took another quarter for a squash risotto as inspired by the lovely people at Riverford Organic, who deliver our weekly veg box.

Riverford’s squash risotto

Now this was a success with the whole family, almost. The kids really enjoyed it, wolfing it down in seconds. It’s easy to eat, so very good for toddlers and babies getting to grip with new textures. My husband did quite like it I think, despite a few comments about the lack of meat. Which is normal from him.

This is another simple recipe. I only used half the quantities given in the Riverford recipe and I still had enough to feed two adults and two children, with a couple of portions left over for the freezer.

With the remaining half of the squash I cooked up a big pan of soup. Butternut squash makes for a very satisfying soup and children in particular love it, probably because they’re rather partial to those sweet flavours.

Roasted butternut squash with rosemary

I usually boil the butternut squash with the potato but this time it had already been roasted, as I’d needed cooked squash for the other recipes. I think I prefer it this way. It gives the soup a slightly more smokey flavour which is delicious.

Butternut squash soup

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 small butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and diced
1 potato, peeled and diced (if you like a thicker soup, add another potato)
1 litre vegetable stock, hot
Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large pan and add the onion. Gently fry until golden.

Add the squash and potato and cook for a minute or two before pouring in the hot stock.

Bring to a gentle simmer, then cover and cook for 15 minutes.

Liquidise the soup until smooth using a handheld blender or in a jug liquidiser. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

It’s lovely to have homemade soup ready to warm up when you’re forced to grab lunch at your desk

As butternut squash is in season right now and in plentiful supply, I’ve entered this post into the Simple and in Season blog event for February over at Fabulicious Food.

I love the idea behind this blog event – highlighting the best of what’s in season now and sharing recipes using those wonderful ingredients.

Some gorgeous looking recipes have already been posted, and I look forward to seeing many more over the coming month.

If you’ve got a recipe using seasonal ingredients, you should check it out!