Best wishes from those of us here at Blue Cayenne (that would be me and Juliet) for a happy Thanksgiving. And, if the going gets tough around the table tomorrow, you might do well to remember the sage advice of Oscar Wilde: “After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
Here is a late entry for your holiday table.
I saw this recipe in the September/October issue of a great healthy-cooking magazine, Eating Well. The idea of roasting squash and apples together and then topping them with roasted pine nuts and dried cherries seemed like it would be a perfect dish for the holiday table. I tweaked the recipe a bit by drizzling on some of the left-over cranberry sauce I had in the refrigerator from the gingerbread recipe I recently posted on Blue Cayenne. The squash and apples tasted great and were beautiful to look at, too. A winner, I think.
Here is the recipe for the cranberry sauce I used in this recipe: Cranberry Sauce. There are, by the way, several excellent recipes for cranberry sauce on Blue Cayenne. You can find them here, here, and here. Incidentally, the recipe for Not My Mother’s Cranberry Relish is one of the most popular recipes I’ve posted on Blue Cayenne.
Save RecipeIngredients
- 1 medium acorn squash (I used a medium peeled butternut squash)
- 2 medium apples
- 3-5 T extra-virgin olive oil (I used 5 T.)
- 3/4 t. ground cinnamon (or more)
- 1/2 t. ground allspice
- 1/2 t. ground coriander
- 1/2 t. salt
- 1/2 t. ground pepper
- 1/4 C. dried cherries
- 1/4 C. toasted pine nuts or pepitas
- Garnish with cranberry sauce and chopped parsley
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Prepare a rimmed baking sheet by lining it with foil.
- Roast pine nuts (or pepitas) in a cast iron pan on your stove top. Be careful. They can quickly burn. Set aside.
- Peel and halve the squash and scoop out the seeds. I usually put hard squashes in my microwave for a couple of minutes before I try to peel them. The microwaving makes things a bit easier and safer. Core (don't peel) the apples. (The Eating Well recipe suggested using apples that hold their shape when roasted such as Pink Lady, Braeburn, and/or Winesap.) Cut the squash and the apples into 1-inch wedges.
- Put cinnamon, allspice, coriander, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Whisk in the oil. Pour this mixture into a large zip lock bag. Add the squash and apples to the bag and shake the bag to coat the vegetables with the marinade. Leave the bag on your counter to marinate the vegetables while you are doing other jobs in the kitchen. My squash and apples were left on the counter for a couple of hours.
- Spread the oil-coated vegetables on your prepared baking shet. Roast until the squash and apples are tender. This took me about 40 minutes at 425 degrees F.
- Remove from the oven and arrange the roasted vegetables on a large pretty plate. Drizzle with cranberry sauce and sprinkle the roasted pine nuts and dried cherries on top. Garnish with chopped parsley. Serve slightly warm.
