butternut squash galette with carmelized onions and fontina

 photos by Stella Chen

My friend Stella and I continued our cooking "lessons" this week, and this time she came to my place to learn some new recipes, "Western style." We made the butternut squash galette from Smitten Kitchen (the cookbook version, which is only slightly different), and a kale salad with shaved brussels sprouts (one of my favorites). And she brought her fancy camera over, so for the first time I have blog photos not taken on my camera phone. :) It was a really nice meal, and the crispy kale salad was a perfect pair for the rich galette - which had the warm winter flavors of squash, onion, sage, and fontina cheese. Delicious! Deb Perelman's dough recipe is pretty easy, too, although I somehow found we ended up with a bit more dough than we needed, and the crust was a bit too thick. But all in all, a great recipe and I want to try further variations with other vegetable fillings. 

deliciously addictive butternut squash dip (with tahini)

Oh, what would I do without my Ottolenghi cookbooks? The only problem now that I have all three is that when I think of a recipe and want to make it, I sometimes have to open more than one book before I find it... This one is from Jerusalem, also posted here on the Guardian website. Even at its most basic, without the date syrup or garnish, this is totally delicious. Spread it on toast for a light breakfast or lunch, or eat with chips or vegetables as a snack. I had it for lunch on Wasa crisps, with a beet-carrot-apple salad. Which I ended up putting on top of the crisps as well, and it was totally delicious. Add some color to your winter meals!

I made about half this recipe with some leftover squash I had. It made about 2 cups, so unless you're having a party, you might want to consider halving the recipe. Next time I might also try roasting the garlic with the squash.

ingredients:
1 very large butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
3 T tahini paste
1/2 cup Greek yoghurt
2 small garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

garnish:
1 tsp mixed black and white sesame seeds (or just white, if you don't have black)
also suggested:
1½ tsp date syrup
2 tbsp chopped cilantro