Roasted Butternut Squash with Cilantro Garlic Miso Sauce

Last week I had a delicious home cooked meal at the home of my good friends J and L. It’s not very often that I get to have someone cook for me, and so I really enjoyed the experience. It didn’t hurt either that the food was phenomenal! J slathered butternut squash in pesto and roasted it in the oven, and served it alongside an Italian Bread Salad. Both were excellent and I’ve literally been dreaming of squash since. It’s strange but my palate has never really taken to squash, except for zucchini, but I never quite developed a taste for the acorns, butternuts, spaghetti’s and pumpkins. A little here and there, prepared in very specific ways was alright with me, but on the whole I could take them or leave them. That was the old me though, because after having J’s delicious roasted butternut squash I’ve become a squash loving convert. I have seen the error of my ways, and I anticipate a lot of squash dinners to come this summer.

Last night my intention was to cook something similar to what J had cooked for me, but having no recipe, and in fact no ingredients to make my own pesto, I was left to my own creative devices. I wanted to make something kind of pesto-like, but I was also in the mood for Miso, and I have several jalapenos in the fridge begging to be used, and so I threw this together. Seeing as how each Butternut squash was vigorously devoured I’d say I did okay for myself.

Roasted Butternut Squash with Cilantro Garlic Miso Sauce

2 Medium sized Butternut Squash, cut in half lengthwise and seeded.

Cilantro Garlic Miso Sauce

1-2 heaping tbsp Mellow white Miso
4-8 cloves garlic
5-7 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp agave
1/4 Jalapeno seeded, membrane removed (more if you want spice)
3-6 tbsp chopped cilantro (enough to make the sauce a light green)
Water to thin as needed

Now I’ll be honest I was in a bit of a hurry while preparing dinner so I wasn’t exactly measuring everything out, so I’ve done my best guess work here on what I threw together but if you want to play around with the measurements a bit by all means do so. I know that when I’m cooking even with a recipe I generally consider each ingredient to be more or less ‘to taste’

- Preheat oven to 400'F / 200'C Place halved Butternut Squash’s into a baking dish lightly sprayed with cooking spray. (To halve Squash I used a large, sharp chef knife, then used a regular spoon to scrape out seeds)

- Place all sauce ingredients in food processor and process until smooth. Taste for flavor and adjust as needed.

- Spoon sauce mixture over butternut squash, making sure to entirely cover each halve, leaving a generous spoonful inside the hallowed out section. Some sauce should be left over. Set it aside to reserve for later.

- Place sauce smothered squash in oven and roast for 45-60 minutes until flesh is easily pierced with a fork, and squash has reached desired softness. (Some people prefer a firmer texture others mushier, that’s up to you)

- When finished remove squash from oven and let cool for five minutes. During this time place remaining sauce in the microwave and heat for approximately 1 minute.

- Serve squash along side a nice salad, (I made a simple romaine salad with a lemon date dressing) and spoon over remaining sauce. Enjoy for a nice light summer meal.