Perfect supper dish...

Baked butternut squash with hazelnuts, goat's cheese and herbs: we ended up with half left and reaheated next day for lunch.

I've had a comment from one of my IAVOM buddies about a recipe.  Its from Good, Good Food by Sarah Raven.  Sarah Raven is a leading light in gardening in the UK, and she also likes food, and she was a Doctor.  There are some superb recipes in the book, in addition I have found the notes on nutrition and health very informative.

I am a bit of an intuitive home cook, and am inspired by reading cookery books, but don't necessarily follow recipes.  For my version of Sarah's Stuffed Butternut Squash, I sliced it in half, left the seeds in, then popped it on a baking sheet in the oven at 180C, having first wiped some oil over the surface.  It took about a hour to get soft.  Of course, whilst this was happening, I was busy in the garden!

After discarding the seeds, I used a desert spoon to scoop out most of the flesh into a bowl.  There I just mixed in some green olives stuffed with lemons, and cubed up some goat's cheese, added plenty of pepper, and chopped and sliced rosemary and sage.  I had soaked the hazelnuts overnight, then tossed them in some ras el hanout, you could use any spice, or no spice, and dry roasted them in the oven for about 15 minutes whilst the butternut squash was roasting.  I then put the stuffing back in the shells, making sure the cheese was more or less on top, so that it could brown a little.

I had roasted 100g of hazel nuts but felt that was too many...planning to make a small batch of pesto with herbs for pasta later in the week, with the remaining.

When out of the oven, a gentle drizzle of olive oil, more hazel nuts and a sprinkling of dried ground seaweed.

The olives, spice, seaweed were my additions, and since I didn't have any soft goat's cheese at the time, used hard cheese.  You could do something similar with sweet potatoes.  Runner beans picked minutes before were from the garden.

If you make this..and love fresh tasty food you are bound to love it.  As a waste not want not...left over could be blitzed and made into a soup!  Roasted butter nut squash and cheese soup!