Since the day after Christmas the guys and I have been going non-stop with stuff involving our house. It's been 15 months and 18 days and tomorrow we will finally, finally be moving back in. We were so fortunate to find this rental home and it was truly meant to be. It was literally the first one I found online and thankfully, it was the only house that we had to look at before knowing we found the right one. We were lucky that the home owner wanted us, too!
I'm so glad to be moving back home but I will miss this neighborhood; people are considerate, friendly and there's always lots of street parking! Tonight I cooked our last meal here and chose a recipe that came out of "The Apple Lover's Cookbook" that Tom gave me for Christmas.
Here's tonight's cast.
I like dishes that I can prep parts of ahead of time. I grated the smoked gouda cheese, covered it and put it in the fridge till I was ready to make the dish. I love gouda but when it's smoked it takes on an interesting aroma that I'm not always keen on. A little really goes a long way, too.
The bread is used for the topping--I had already packed my food processor away so I just tore the bread into small, uniform bits. I left it uncovered on the counter for a few hours to get a bit stale.
I peeled the squash, sliced it in half the long way and then used a large spoon to remove the seeds and stringy bits. Then I cut them into 1/4" slices. I wasn't very consistent with the size of the pieces so they were kind of all over the place.
I thought this step was interesting--the squash gets put into the oven to cook but the water, cream and cheese is added to it first; usually gratins are topped with cheese.
All my baking dishes are at home now so I used a 9x13 pan to layer the cheesy squash in. I covered the pan with foil and put it into the oven at 350F for 20 minutes.
While the squash cooked, I peeled, cored and sliced two Honeycrisp apples and diced up an onion. After the squash had been cooking for the initial 20 minutes, I took the foil off and put it back in for another 15 minutes.
In the meantime, I melted some butter in a large frying pan.
The onions were cooked till they began to turn brown--then I added dried rosemary, some of the salt and some of the pepper. After about a minute, the apple slices came to join the party!
I love the smell of apples cooking.
You definitely don't want the apples to go soggy--cook them till they just start to get tender.
By this time the squash was nicely cooked. I took it out of the oven, moved the oven rack up a few notches and turned the broiler on high.
The cooked apples and onions went over the squash.
When I melted the butter to cook the onions, I added an extra tablespoon. When the butter melted, I poured a tablespoon over my bread crumbs. Some ground nutmeg was added and the whole thing was tossed around a bit.
Sprinkle the topping over the apples and onions. Then pop it under the broiler for 2-3 minutes.
The bread got nice and brown and toasty! Let it set for about 10 minutes or so.
What a fantastic combination--I love cheese and apples and I also love cheese and onions together. The combination of sweet, salty, smoky, creamy and crunchy was a winner. The butternut squash has such a mild flavor that its main role in this dish was to provide a smooth vehicle to present the smoked Gouda on. It worked.
Tom came into the kitchen when the squash and cheese was in the oven. He really didn't care for the smell but gave the finished casserole a taste--I don't think it'll be one of his favorites but he said it tasted much better than it smelled! I'll take that!
Here is the promised link (it was featured in an article of the Washington Post):
Comments
Post a Comment