Monday, January 5, 2009

Roasted Squash Salad

The planning, shopping, and cooking for Christmas ended with splendid indulging and leftovers for a few days. Indulging continued on through New Year’s week, but I was no longer cooking. While visiting family, I got to sit back, relax, and catch up on magazine reading. Is there anything better than not setting an alarm for several days, getting to sit and read without even needing to glance at a clock from time to time, and knowing someone else is making dinner today? Well, that last one is nice once in a while. I spotted this roasted squash salad in the December issue of Bon Appetit which I lazily read right after finishing Saveur and just before picking up Eating Well. Rough week. The combination of flavors sounded great, and it looked like a meal in itself.

The peeled butternut squash was thinly sliced and roasted with a glaze of balsamic vinegar and a scant bit of brown sugar. The remaining ingredients were simply arranged on the plate. The one change I made was using pears instead of apples. Endive spears were fanned about, pear slices were interspersed, the roasted squash was mounded nearby, and dried cranberries and blue cheese crumbles were spilled atop it all. The plated salad received a drizzling of balsamic and lemon vinaigrette.

It was simple and lovely, and tasted as good as I knew it would when I sat idly reading about it a few days ago. What culinary challenges and delights will 2009 hold? Which filed-away recipes will finally be attempted this year? What classics will I ruin beyond all recognition? I have no idea. I really want to make a sourdough starter. I want to make tamales in my own banana leaves. I want to make ice cream too. And, I have a stack of new books waiting to inspire all sorts of new dishes.


12 comments:

  1. I love roasted squash in anything, you know that!
    This is a nice part of detoxing after all the FAT and SUGAR weeks.

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  2. that is indeed some thinly sliced squash! i suspect that i'd end up bleeding, or at the very least, extremely frustrated trying to slice it so thin. my knife work needs practice. :)
    great salad, lisa!

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  3. looks lovely, I think I'll try this. I wonder which cheese I could substitute the blue cheese with (embarrasingly enough for a foodie - I don't like blue cheese :).
    I'm thinking good feta would work well, or even Gruyere...

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  4. Stacey-- Roasted squash is never a bad thing.

    Grace-- The slices may be thin, but I guarantee they're not even!

    Kat-- Goat cheese would be good here too.

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  5. What a beautiful and creative salad you presented! I was going to ask what kind of knife you used to cut those with...nuking and baking whole is my easy way out sometimes...

    I have two large squash waiting for me to make this week...not sure what I will do...

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  6. A nice presentation! This looks very beautiful indeed :)

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  7. What a nice mix of colours and flavours. The close ups are beautiful :)

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  8. That salad looks good. Nice presentation!

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  9. That's the best part of holiday season; sitting back and relaxing! Good that you found this recipe with your reading time while relaxing. It looks lovely. Thanks for sharing.

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  10. Nicely presented and looks really delicious!

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  11. Okay Lisa I combined the squash and mole and made a casserole...

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  12. Sounds like we have the same reading habits -- I read Saveur before any other magazines :)

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