Gluten Free Stuffed Butternut Squash

This is one of the first recipes I ever wanted to do in Rubelle’s Moon’s Gluten Free Challenge, but I always had other things that came up, and since I’ve been focusing on Christmas stuff for quite some time now, I thought I should bring you all some more main courses… which I hope you’ve been enjoying!

This one is vegetarian, delicious and a great alternative to a Sunday Roast (we had it as our Sunday Dinner!) The best thing is, Butternut Squash seems to be in season and on sale at the moment, so you can get great squash and not spend too much! Also, you could serve this with something meaty if you like meat or you could halve it again and serve four and serve it with another vegetarian accompanyment or maybe some swede mash, stuffed mushrooms or simply some corn bread… it’s a really versatile dish!

Here’s the original recipe location:

http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall/stuffed_butternet_squash

Here’s a quote from the wonderful Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from the Channel 4 website:

Hugh: “This is one of my favourite autumn main courses, another great vegetable idea that I’ve borrowed from my friend, Sarah Raven. It’s easy to adapt and alter the stuffing for the squash, according to what you have and what you fancy.” …

And, here’s the recipe now i’ve adapted it…

Ingredients

1 x Large butternut squash
1 x Garlic clove, chopped and crushed
2 x Tsp Dairy Free Margarine
Spray Olive Oil
50g Walnuts, Chopped in a blender and then toasted for a few minutes in the oven
50g Soft Goats Cheese, cut into chunks/slices/strips (it’s not very ‘cuttable’, so just break it up so it melts in easily)

25g Crumbly Chedder Cheese (or Caerphilly… my new cheese obsession!)
2 x Tsp Roughly chopped thyme
1 x Tsp Runny Honey
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat the oven to 190 C

1. Clean the squash on the outside (especially important to make sure this is clean to avoid any accidental glutening if you put it in the trolley, on the conveyor belt or even if it’s been anywhere in transit that this could have happened! Plus, get rid of anything else unwanted that may be on it! Give it a good scrub!)

2. Half the squash – you’ll need a big knife to cut through and also, be careful as it’s pretty tough to cut through.

3. Scoop out the seeds and fibre-y bits (this bit drives me mad, so the boyfriend had to take over!) Grab a pyrex dish big enough for the squash and put the two halves in – fleshy side up. Then put one Tsp of margarine in one of the holes you scooped the fibres out of, and one Tsp in the other half, pop in half the crushed garlic in each half, put the dish in the oven and bake uncovered for 1 hour.

4. Once baked, scoop out the flesh into a bowl (leave around 1cm of flesh in it, don’t be too vigourous with your scooping as I was as I broke the skin at one point – if you do this too, just patch it back up with some squash!) make sure you get all the garlic butter in with the squash, season well and give it a real mash up.

5. Sprinkle in the walnuts, thyme, honey and goats cheese, season to your taste and mix until combined.

6. Now put all the lovely goats cheese squash mixture back into the ‘shells’ of the squash, sprinkle with the crumbly cheese, cover with tin foil and put back into the oven for 15 minutes.