Squash Apple Bake

Many, many moons ago I worked at a grocery store called Wegmans.  If you live on the east coast you may very well have shopped at Wegmans, but otherwise you wouldn't recognize it... yet.  (they are expanding at a fast rate)  Wegmans prides itself as being a shopping experience.  They often have great prices, but they also make sure they carry a huge variety of foods and they will make sure that incredible effort goes into the environment and quality of their stores and customer service.  Part of this customer service is to have a chef cooking during the day, giving out samples and teaching techniques. 

I was that person.  (back when I did it, they didn't require a culinary degree)  It was... interesting.  But I learned a lot, and picked up a few recipes along the way.  Often the recipes that they'd want taught were those that stretched the boundaries of how food is typically prepared in a home kitchen.  (I remember when I spent a month teaching how to properly braise different meats.. and you'd be shocked how many people don't do it effectively) 

One of the recipes that I taught was a Squash Apple Bake.  While I may not remember the exact recipe due to my habit of tweaking things along the way, I do know what I put in it now.  It's a butternut squash recipe, and the squash itself is sliced and cooked, giving it a slightly different texture than the mushy squash that you would typically find when one thinks of "sweet" winter squash. 

The other good things about it: butternut squash isn't hard to grow, keeps on the shelf for a long time, and is fairly inexpensive at roadside stands. The downside?  Squash is hard to "peel".  You have to take a really sharp knife and just slice off sections of the outside until all you have is the orange inside.  Don't cut yourself.  And then slice the pieces off, throwing away the stringy seedy section in the bottom.  It would confuse the texture of the dish if you kept the "guts" in there.

Try this recipe, you'll be glad you have.

Squash Apple Bake

Ingredients:

1 large butternut squash, peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch thick pieces (discarding the stringy core)
2-3 McIntosh apples, peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch thick pieces
1 small onion, sliced
1 stick of butter
1 cup of brown sugar, split in half
1 cup of apple cider (can substitute water)

Preheat your oven to 375*

In the bottom of a 13x9 pan, put a layer of squash, layer of onion, layer of apple and then scatter pats of butter on top.  Sprinkle one half of the brown sugar over this.  Repeat the process.  If you haven't used up all your ingredients after two tiers you can add a third.  It's not an exact science.  Then pour the cider over the top of it all.

Cover with foil.  Bake at 375 for about an hour, or until the squash is fork-tender.