This recipe, like a number of the ones on this site and in my regular rotation, comes from Smitten Kitchen (Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette) and to me via my friend Sarah. This is another thing that often pops up in tae kwon do dinners because it is vegetarian and it's easy to scale up to feed a crowd.
Though it is a bit time consuming and labor intensive, the result is well worth the effort. Any recipe that gets my husband to help me eat a winter squash is double good because they're pretty big for just one person. :)
Substitutions/variations
I have made it on my own maybe 3 or 4 times now.
- The recipe originally calls for butternut squash. I vastly prefer kabocha squash (also known as buttercup squash) so I use that instead. It is less stringy and has less of that weird cloying squashy flavor and a little more sweetness. I think I used red kuri squash once and that was also tasty.
- While a nice melty cheese in the filling is good, I think I like the saltiness of feta. A good mozzarella cheese would probably give the best of both worlds. I used hunks of goat cheese once, which was also good.
- I add some shredded Parmesan to keep some of the "stinky cheese" vibe Deb wanted to imbue.
- Plain Greek yogurt works really well in the crust.
- I don't chill the bowls for the crust for an hour. Just make sure your butter is really cold and you're fine. Pretty sure this was written before she had children when she had 3 hours to make pie dough.
- I also put the dough in the freezer to chill it faster if I'm in a hurry. Just don't leave it in there for too long or it will get too hard. I happen to have the world's largest home microwave and it has a gentle "soften" setting to defrost this dough without wrecking it, but if your microwave is more ham-handed with defrosting foods, you may just need to wait it out at room temperature if it gets too cold.
