— Sarah VanderZanden

Well that butternut squash hummus that I just spoke of is fantastic and a really nice way to Um anchor a meal in many ways and depends on you know, all the think about all the ways you could use to dip into that whether it's nice seasoned pita chips, whether it's vegetable chips, etc. Etc. There's just a lot you can do with that a dish that I served. The other night actually had a sort of an annual Harvest Feast that we have at our house. that does it features a couple of meat items but the steel but the star of the show of this was a rusted Butternut dish which was nice cubes of butternut squash and when I buy Butternut I look for the stockiest the shaftiest ones that just have that that very long area before the before the bulb or the seed end of it because that way you get sort of the most, you know, consistent cuts out of it. If you have just this much of the stock and then this much of the bulb you're gonna have a lot of different sized in shape pieces, right? But if it's that big then you're gonna get a whole lot of nice big cubes out of it and that's exactly what I did and I rusted them off in a high oven and with oil until they were nice and colored on one side. I preheated the tray so that I got a nice little bit of color on there and then once they were cool, so just when they're knife tender pull them out you don't And falling apart because you're gonna end up tossing them and that's exactly what I did. I tossed them with toasted almonds cilantro. mint green onions and lime juice and that mixture together was so good that this that dish which was ostensibly a side dish ended up stealing the show by far. So that's one. That's really nice. It's beautiful. It's colorful. Oh, I'm sorry. I also a chili peppers in there. So I had some nice. Fresno Chiles which are nice and red and have these beautiful nice pops of these red rings throughout this dish of that golden russet hued roasted squash with all the greens of the herbs, which I used copiously by the way, so that was a really fun dish and it even though it sort of presents as a side dish. It's gorgeous and beautiful and if you served it heaped and mounded up and you have a nice rice peel off on the side of it brown rice cooked with some some more almonds or something like that in there for nice crunch serving on the side of that with some student beans. That's a really nice full grounded meal with a lot of color a lot of seasonal influence a lot of Pop do it that can be really be great. Sure. You can do the cauliflower steaks things like that that's sort of hue more towards that center of the plate aesthetic that Carnival omnivorous diets tend towards but when I eat I like really a lot of components in my in my meal rather than one big steak. I just I don't dig that it gets really boring to me but I understand the aesthetic and and sort of the celebratory nature of that. So if you're doing something more like that a nice cauliflower steak or the butternut squash steak as I explained before pre simmered insulted water heavily salted water with some nice aromatic spices of the Season such as star anise juniper berries, all spice berries, black peppercorns Bailey, maybe a cinnamon stick in there something like that. Gives it this really nice heady rustic scent to it pull that out Pat that dry. Throw it under the broiler saute until golden brown. Throw it on the grill for some smokiness put a little smoked paprika on there. If you're not outside on the grill that gives you this really nice center of the plate thing and then pile it high with herbs shaved very thinly shaved shallot and fennel mint parsley tarragon leaves just in this nice salad on top that itself is crunchy throw some Crunch and crunchy toasted almonds all around the plate. You got a really nice meal.