Butternut Squash and Creamed Spinach Casserole

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This year during the holidays, my neighbor and I were musing about what vegetable side dishes we were going to serve for our respective holiday dinners.  We laughed as we kept veering off the subject to talk about desserts, or breads, or appetizers, or stuffings, or potatoes, and had to keep reminding ourselves that the topic at hand was VEGETABLE side dishes—why were we having trouble staying on topic?  And I realized that as much as I love vegetables, I didn’t have nearly as many winter vegetable options in my repertoire as I would like.  So now that the holidays have come and gone, one of my resolutions is to remedy this situation and find all sorts of great things to do with vegetables—especially for holidays and other festive occasions.

This recipe is one of my first great finds.  It is adapted from a recipe I found in a back issue of Gourmet magazine.  The bulk of the preparation time is in the thawing of the spinach and the slicing of the squash—those two things are easy, but take a little time—after that, this is a cinch to make.  It is also a really good dish to make ahead of time.  If you do this, just put foil or plastic wrap over the parchment paper and put the whole thing in the refrigerator.  When you are ready to bake, take the casserole out of the refrigerator in time to let it return to room temperature before baking, take the foil or wrap off, and proceed to the baking step.

The result of your efforts will be a rich-tasting, creamy, bubbly treat that everyone (including some kids who don’t yet love spinach…) will love and think you are a genius for making.  Just don’t bring it to my house next year for the holidays—it will already be on the table.

Butternut Squash and Creamed Spinach Casserole

Makes 8 to 10 servings

Preparation Time:  1 hour
Cook Time:  45 minutes
Total Time:  1 hour, 45 minutes

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Ingredients:

4 10-ounce packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed, and thoroughly squeezed to     remove as much moisture as possible
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 ½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 ½ cups heavy cream
1 large butternut squash, peeled, quartered, seeded and then very thinly sliced either in     the food processor or using a mandoline
1 ½ cups grated Parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Thoroughly squeeze the thawed spinach to remove all extra moisture and place in a mixing bowl.

Melt 3 tablespoons of the butter in a small saucepan and sauté the onion and the garlic until they are softened and transclucent.  Add the onion mixture, the salt, pepper, nutmeg and heavy cream to the spinach and stir to combine.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and butter a 9 x 13 inch baking dish.

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Place a layer of squash, a layer of the spinach mixture and a sprinkling of Parmesan in the dish.  Repeat the layering 3 or 4 times until you run out of ingredients—but end with squash as the top layer.  Spread the remaining Parmesan cheese on top of the squash and then dot the top of the casserole with thin slivers of the remaining butter.  Cover the top of the casserole with parchment paper (parchment won’t lift the ingredients off, the way foil will—if you have to use foil, be sure it doesn’t stick to the top layer).  Bake the casserole for 30 minutes and then remove the parchment.  Cook for another 15 minutes until the top is nicely browned.

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One Response to Butternut Squash and Creamed Spinach Casserole

  1. You have a gift for making things memorable. illplaywithyou

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