Stuffed Spinach and Cheese Butternut Squash

Winter has come very early to southern Vermont. Not only did we have a white Thanksgiving to the tune of 13 inches of snow, we’ve had day upon day of ice. It seems like just yesterday that we were harvesting the last kale, chard, broccoli, and our meager two pumpkins from the garden.  Now it’s time to buy produce again, and we’re fortunate to have a number of local organic squash and root vegetables available. So when the weather looked like this for days upon days,

It seemed like a good excuse to make a hearty meal of stuffed butternut squash. 

This one was a pretty big fellow, and I erred by scooping out the squash too close to the edges, but this stuffed squash was a complete meal and a very satisfying one at that.

Ingredients:

1 medium butternut squash

2 Tablespoons butter

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 celery heart, finely chopped

½ Against The Grain Original Baguette, finely chopped

1 large egg

¾ cup shredded parmesan cheese

1 cup fresh baby spinach, coarsely chopped

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and cut the squash length-wise into two halves. Scoop out the pulp and seeds and place the squash cut side down on the baking sheet. Bake until tender, about 50 to 60 minutes. Leave the oven on.

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat and sauté the onion and celery just until tender, about three minutes. Remove from the heat and add the baguette, tossing the mixture until the bread is coated. Set aside to cool.

When the squash is done and cooled enough to handle, scoop out the flesh into a medium bowl, leaving enough of a wall to support the filling. Set the squash boats back on the baking tray, open side up.

When the squash flesh is cooled, add the baguette mix, egg, cheese, and spinach to the squash flesh and blend thoroughly.

Spoon the filling into the two squash boats and sprinkle with a little shredded parmesan. Bake on a medium rack for approximately 30 to 35 minutes until the filling is bubbling and the top becomes crusty.

Just What Kind of Person Works in a Wholesale Gluten Free Bakery Anyway?

We're located right near the banks of the Connecticut River in Brattleboro, VT, and Amtrak trundles by twice a day!

Starting our own business from scratch (with zero experience in the food industry) and hiring and developing a staff we can trust has been an amazing experience. Everything we bake is made in small batches with fresh ingredients, and there is a lot of our staff in every bag we sell. (Of course, I’m not referring to their hair or anything like that--joke.) Much thought goes into what we bake, and there is considerable team interaction involved before our products land on the shelves of a retail store or a food service counter. Our products most definitely reflect the personalities behind them.

The only commonality at Against The Grain seems to be that everyone is an intelligent foodie in some way. They are master problem-solvers, and they get giddy when we work on new product development. One could say that everyone’s input is “baked into” the final product. We work really hard, show tremendous respect for what we bake, and even find time to goof around.

Among our staff, we have someone who was an opera composer and is a performing pianist. We have a philosophy major, who is an expert in healing herbs and is currently working on a master’s degree in nutrition. There’s a professional puppeteer, and an ethnomusicologist, who is also a reggae drummer, a glass blower, and has his own radio show. Then there is an environmental ecologist, who is also a fine arts painter. We also have our own mini-version of Donald Trump (well, he’s a lot nicer than “the Donald,”) who has a black belt in Taekwondo and is on his way to becoming a real estate mogul. There’s a comparative religion major, someone with a doctorate in animal behavior, and a single mom who has lived in a kibbutz in Israel and on a Hare Krishna dairy farm. We also employ a young man who attends a local school for autism; he’s a train fanatic and a master storyteller. Chester, the office Golden, scares away salesmen, jumps all over ornery truck drivers, and has been known to chase bankers back to their car.

What do all these people have to do with gluten free bread? They are some of the most creative people you’ll find, and all of us that eat gluten free know that it takes a lot of creativity to make a premium product.