Butternut squash risotto

Today I decided to break out the autumn favorite of butternut squash risotto. The creaminess of the rice and the sweetness of the roasted butternut squash is the perfect backdrop for a spicy seitan hash on top. The roasted green onions bring a bit more savory onion flavor to the party and the look nice as hell too. I feel this dish really celebrates some of the delicious harvest available at my local farmers market this time of year and really warms you up on a nice cool evening. I would suggest a nice sweet Riesling to go with this dish as it compliments the sweetness of the squash, especially the pieces that were caramelized by the roasting, and really balances out the spice of the hash on top. If you don't have seitan I would recommend some white beans, actually that probably would have been a better choice.


Butternut Squash Risotto

5 cups vegetable stock
1 cup of brown short grain rice
1 sweet onion diced
5 cloves garlic minced
white wine
1 butternut squash, peeled and diced into good size chunks
olive oil
Salt
pepper

Roast the butternut at 450 degrees and turn over a few times until caramelized and tender, about 30 mins. Did i mention you should oil up the sheet pan and squash and season aggressively with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, saute your onion and garlic for about 5 minutes, then add the rice and cook for about 5 minutes until the grains are translucent. Deglaze with white wine. Then add stock to cover, cook until it evaporates, then add more stock and stir. repeat until rice is just about done. Once this is ready your butternut squash should be good to go. Take half of the squash and puree it or "squash" it up (see what i did there, haha). Add squash to rice mixture and cook for a few minutes to incorporate the squash in really well. AT this time your rice should still be a little oozy, if not add a bit more stock and loosen it up. Finish with a bit of vegan butter and add the roasted squash chunks that you didn't mash. Top with the spicy hash, recipe follows.

Spicy Seitan or White Bean hash

1 can white beans, or 1 pkg seitan
4 good potatoes, diced small
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small eggplant, diced small
olive oil
salt
pepper
paprika
cayenne

Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil. Add the potatoes. Cook for a bit. Let it get crispy, dont mess around with it too much. Then add the eggplant and cook until it gets real tender and the potatoes crisp some more. Add beans or seitan and get them brown. Season with paprika and cayenne to taste. You may need to add a bit of water to this to get the potatoes to steam a bit too. I had too. If you dice them small enough they should cook through with only the heat of the pan.

ENJOY!