A bit of a squash (twice)

Time for a couple more recipes from The Green Roasting Tin. I've enjoyed using this so much this year that I've also given it to friends for Christmas.

First up was sticky rice with squash and broccoli. I had made this before and enjoyed it enough to want to make again despite the difficulty preparing squash. I also found that unless it's late October/early November it can be tricky to find anything other than butternut squash in the supermarket. However it is exactly the type of nourishing, comfort food that winter, and in particular the timeless Christmas/New Year period calls for. 

This time I tweaked the recipe slightly in a couple of respects due to availability of ingredients and what I had to hand. This wasn't entirely successful and I would recommend definitely using white rice if possible (I've not tried it with the jasmine rice in the recipe which may be even better). I had brown rice to hand so used that instead. It was perfectly nice but not as creamy and comforting as the white rice version. Put the rice in a deep roasting tin with garlic, ginger and coconut milk. I put the tin of coconut milk into a saucepan of boiling water first to make sure it was liquid and easy to mix into the other ingredients. Do take care though as the tin will get very hot! Then comes tackling the squash. As well as being the only squash readily available, butternut squash was slightly easier to peel and cut into chunks than other varieties. I only needed 300g for 2 people (or in reality one person twice) so I had plenty left over for my second recipe. Once peeled and cut into chunks the squash is placed in the tin on top of the rice. Cover the tin and cook for 45 minutes.

Remove the tin from the oven, stir and add 300g for broccoli, soy sauce and lime juice. Recover and return to the oven for 15 minutes. At this stage you are also meant to put some cashews on a tray to roast. I didn't have any to hand so omitted these but I did miss the contrast in texture in the end result. This is also the time to prepare the dressing-sesame oil (or in my case olive oil), soy sauce, lime juice, and chilli. The recipe also includes coriander but this was something else I didn't have in and I didn't miss this as much as the nuts.

My second recipe was for squash, gnocci and mushrooms. It was my first time trying to this but it was so tasty it won't be the last. For one person you need 250g squash (I used a little more as I was using up what I had from recipe one), 250g of gnocci, and 150g of mushrooms. Prepare the gnocci in boiling water for a couple of minutes and drain well. Put all the ingredients in a roasting tin, together with oil and roast for 35 minutes. The recipe also calls for sage but again I didn't have any too hand (I am far better at having a good selection of spices in stock, but herbs are more challenging). It was very tasty even without the sage. 

Serve with what the recipe calls a basil dressing, but what I realised while preparing it was effectively a pesto-finely chopped basil, pine nuts, oil, lemon juice, and garlic. I adjusted the quantities for the other ingredients but didn't reduce the garlic (as less than a clove is just too fiddly) which gave it a lovely piquancy. 

I'm glad I was only making enough for one person, as my roasting tin is a little small and while everything was well cooked the gnocci wasn't as crispy as it should have been.

Both meals were lovely and I'd be happy to make them again but the issues with preparing squash mean there are more likely be an occasional treat than a regular feature on my menu.