please do try this at home

yesterday i saw these delicious looking butternut squashes at the grocery store and bought one. as i didn't have anything specific in mind i used what was in the house to make this dish. and let me tell you: it was awesome!

i cut it into two halves, scooped out the seeds and put aside for another day, another thing. then scooped out the inside.

as filling i finely chopped a big onion, thinly sliced a small leek, fried and added minced beef. well, i'm not a big fan of minced meat, only this specific kind which my mother in law buys as fresh meat and minces herself. if you're not into meat at all, i think beans would have made an excellent filling too, but i didn't have any that had soaked (and this was a spur of the moment kind of cooking). and of course i also added the lovely light orange inside of the butternut squash i had scooped out.

i then added chopped walnuts (i think cashews might have been better, but didn't have any). then i added some silan. don't know what it's called outside the middle east, but it's also called date honey here as it looks like honey, is sweet like honey, but made entirely out of dates. besides salt i then added some cinnamon, just a tiny bit, but just enough, to give it a little extra something.

while making the filling, i baked the two halves of the butternut squash which i had drizzled with olive oil.
then i added my filling, topped it off with parmesan cheese and chopped walnuts and baked until the cheese melted and became golden.

this was such an amazing dish. we had tomato salad on the side, but i think rice would have made a nice side dish too. This dish is also great when you have dinner guests as you can do most of the work before your guests arrive and then you just need to put them in the oven 5 minutes before you sit down to eat.

but it was also perfect as a sweet dinner for two. i had most of it prepared and when the kids had gone to sleep we sat down and shared our butternut squash meal. there's something about having a half each, like it was meant for just the two of you.

wishing you a sweet weekend.