This is one of my all time favorite Thanksgiving recipes! People always love it, and it can be completely assembled a day before you want to serve it, which is awesome.
Start with a gigantic butternut squash. Actually, start by preheating the oven to 400. Then grab your huge squash.
This squash was a little ridiculous. You need 8 cups total – this one probably yielded 12.
Cut and peel the squash. I learned last year that you can peel a butternut squash with a regular vegetable peeler. You probably knew that already, but I was pretty excited.
Cube it up.
Like I said, you need about 8 cups of squash.
Drizzle the squash with extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper. I just mix it all up with my (clean) hands. Roast for about 35 minutes at 400 degrees, stirring occasionally.
Feed the squashey insides to the chickens, if they like that sort of thing.
While the squash is roasting, prep the leeks.
Leeks are amazing, but can be a little bit tricky to wash.
Cut off the bottoms and the green tops, and wash them in a bowl of cool water. Leeks grow in sandy soil, so you have to be careful not to end up with little sandy bits. By soaking them and then cleaning them in a bowl of water, it helps get the sand out.
I like 4 cups of leeks in this recipe but if you have more leftover, just use them. You can’t have too many leeks here.
Heat about 2 TB of butter in a pan on medium/medium high, throw in the leeks with some salt, pepper, and fresh chopped sage (you could use dried if you want, but use the fresh if you have it!). Cook this for about 15 minutes.
While the leeks are cooking, measure out 1/2 cup of hazelnuts (or Filberts if you are from Oregon). You could probably roast and peel the nuts if you have lots of time and aren’t a lazy cook (like me).
Now is the fun part! Once everything is all cooked, it’s time to assemble! Grease a 9×11 baking pan, and add half of the leeks to the bottom.
Now add half of the roasted squash.
Now take a small log of goat cheese (or a largeish one if you really love goat cheese). Sprinkle the cheese on top of the squash.
Now repeat with the rest of the leeks, squash, and goat cheese.
Pour 1 cup of half and half (or heavy cream if you are wild!) over the top. Sprinkle with the chopped hazelnuts.
If you are making this dish the day before Thanksgiving, stop here. If not, bake for about 30 minutes at 375 degrees. If you are baking it cold (straight out of the fridge), add 10-15 minutes to your bake time. You want everything to be bubbling and starting to get golden.
Enjoy!
Oh, my mom has been requesting actual recipes. So here you go:
Or you could check out the original, which I have slightly adapted.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Rinsed the chicken and stuffed the cavity with lemons.
I had some veggies in the fridge that were looking a little wilty, so I chopped them up, mixed in a bit of olive oil and salt, and put them in the dutch oven. Carrots (some from our garden!), onions, celery, and cherry tomatoes from our garden that I froze last summer.
Chicken on top with more olive oil and salt.
Baked at 350 degrees with the lid on for about an hour; then removed the lid, added a little butter on top for color, and roasted for 15 minutes more.
My plate. Yum.
