It’s getting cooler in WI; somehow, I’m not quite ready to commit to saying it’s fall, even though I wore gloves yesterday when I was biking in. The fall produce is showing up at the market, and my brother says I should submit to this NYT potluck recipes contest. It’s hard for me to say what my signature potluck dish is, though, because my favorite dish is always the one I just made, if it came out the way I wanted it to. It’s just like how my favorite movie or book is always the one I just saw or read, if I liked it, of course.
Last night I made a squash gratin that I’ve always liked – it’s basically from the Greens Cook Book, by Deborah Madison & Ed Espe Brown – Greens being one of the first, maybe THE first, fine dining vegetarian restaurant in the country. I’ve always liked the book, but I’ve always grumbled when reading the recipes, “Sure, they can say to use that because they have 3 farms in the Sacramento Valley growing exquisite organic baby vegetables just for them.”
I tried to take lots of pictures so maybe I can submit.
- Another stacked
- Squash rings stacked up in sauce
- Another partially eaten view
- Partially eaten
- Longer view around rice pot
- spatula with leek bits
- Tomatoes & squash - raw materials
Winter squash gratin
The original uses butternut, peeled and sliced and fried. When I use butternut in this, I usually peel and slice and roast it, using less oil. This time I had delicata, so I made rings and pan-fried them.
- 2 big tomatoes, or 4 – 5 plum, or even a can of diced tomatoes – enough so that you end up with about 2 cups of peeled, seeded, chopped tomatoes
- 2 – 4 TBLS olive oil
- chopped or sliced leeks or onions, 3/4 cup or so
- splash to about 1/2 cup white wine
- chopped fresh herbs – thyme, sage, or parsley whatever you’ve got, or some of all three – about 2-3 TBLS
- 1 delicata squash
- 4 – 5 ounces Jarlsberg or Gruyere cheese, sliced thinly – or whatever you’ve got!
Blanch the tomatoes, peel, seed and chop – or open a can! Pour 1 -2 TBLS olive oil in a skillet, warm it, and add the chopped onions or leeks. Cook until the onions have softened, and then pour in the wine. Let most of it boil off, and then add the tomatoes. Cook down until most of the liquid is evaporated, season with salt & pepper, and stir in the herbs. Remove from the heat.
Meanwhile, peel the squash, cut it into rings, and seed it. Pour a little more olive oil in another skillet, and add the rings, and saute over medium high heat, turning, until they have a little color on both sides, then cover, and reduce the heat and cook until the squash is cooked though, but still firm.
Assemble the gratin: lightly oil a baking dish (I put too much oil in the skillet for frying the squash so I poured that into my baking dish), and spoon in a thin layer of tomato sauce. Arrange the squash rings artfully over the sauce. Tuck the cheese slices in here and there, and then top with the rest of the tomato sauce. Cover the dish with foil, and bake at 375° for 15 minutes, then uncover and bake 15 minutes more. Two of us ate about half the dish with rice, but a greedy squash-lover could easily consume the whole thing – alternatively, it might feed 6 if there were other dishes on offer.
