Menu:
This menu fits so well with the crisp weather of autumn—from the roasted butternut squash soup, to a spectacular stuffed pumpkin baked to perfection in the French style. Tell everyone to save room, because a rustic apple crisp is for dessert.
Starter: Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
Main: Spectacular Stuffed Pumpkin
Side: Kale Salad with Cider-Maple Vinaigrette
Dessert: Any-Fruit Crisp with Homemade Caramel Sauce
STARTER: ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP
Serves 8
Ingredients You’ll Need
4 (12-ounce) packages precut butternut squash (or 2 medium butternut squashes, peeled, seeded, and chopped)
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon honey
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, for seasoning
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
Healthy pinch of ground cinnamon
Healthy pinch of ground nutmeg
2 cups unsweetened canned coconut milk or heavy cream
Optional Garnishes
Croutons
Sour Cream
Paprika
Hot sauce
Spiced pumpkin seeds
Pomegranate seeds
Brown sugar
Tools You’ll Need
2 baking sheets
Aluminum foil
Knife
Cutting board
Fork
Garlic press (optional)
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Dutch oven
Immersion (hand) blender or regular blender (I highly recommend an immersion blender for making soup, as a regular blender can be hazardous when dealing with hot liquids.)
How to Make It
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Line two baking sheets with foil.
- Place chopped squash in a single layer on the prepared baking sheets, drizzle with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, honey, and season with salt and pepper. Toss to coat. Roast in oven for 45 minutes.
- While the squash is roasting, chop the onion and prep the garlic.
- Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté for 5–6 minutes. Remove from heat.
- When squash easily pierces with a fork, it is done. Add it to the Dutch oven along with the stock, salt, pepper, and spices.
- Place Dutch oven back on the burner and turn to medium-high heat. Bring the soup to a low boil and then reduce heat to medium-low, covering to simmer 20 minutes.
- When the time is up, stir coconut milk or cream into the mix, and then blend with an immersion blender until smooth. If not using an immersion blender, remove soup from heat for 15 minutes to cool. Once the soup is no longer hot, add to a traditional blender, but do not overfill the blender. Try pureeing half and then removing it to a mixing bowl, and then repeating the process with the remaining mixture. Then add it back into the Dutch oven to reheat on medium heat for 10 minutes.
- Taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if desired.
Recipe Notes
- Make ahead: You can make this soup a day in advance and reheat on the stove at medium heat for 20 minutes prior to serving.
- I highly recommend buying precut squash as it saves time.
- This soup can be dairy-free and vegan if you use vegetable broth and coconut milk.
- Serve with garnishes like sour cream, paprika, hot sauce, spiced pumpkin seeds, or pomegranate seeds.
- If you’re serving this soup on its own, a nice addition is homemade croutons. They’re a snap to make. Just heat 4 tablespoons of melted butter in a skillet on medium-high heat. Add a few handfuls of cubed or torn up french bread and move them around with a wooden spoon to get them crisp on all sides, watching so they don’t burn, for about 10 minutes. Voila! Homemade croutons
MAIN: SPECTACULAR STUFFED PUMPKIN
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan: “Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good” 1
Serves 8
This recipe is outstanding. Although it may seem crazy to bake a pumpkin like this, it is a very forgiving recipe and a showstopper for any fall
gathering!
Ingredients You’ll Need
2 medium sugar pie pumpkins, about 3–4 pounds each, cleaned; or 8 smaller sugar pie pumpkins if you want to offer individual servings (Sugar pie pumpkins are not the carving pumpkin variety, but are sweeter and better for baking. They are available seasonally at most grocers.)
2–4 tablespoons butter, softened
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, for seasoning
For the Stuffing
2 loaves (around 12 ounces) bread, such as French or sourdough, torn or cut into 1/2-inch cubes
10 slices bacon, cooked and chopped
2 pounds sweet Italian sausage, cooked
2 onions, diced and sautéed
2 apples, such as Granny Smith, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/2 pound cheese, cubed, such as white cheddar, Gruyère, Quattro Formaggi, or Pepper Jack
1/4 cup green onions, finely chopped
1 cup dried cranberries
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
2/3 cup heavy cream (or you could use 1/3 cream and 1/3 broth)
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Tools You’ll Need
2 baking sheets
Parchment paper
Knife
Cutting board
Garlic press
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Skillet
Tongs
Baking platter or large cutting board
Baking dish (optional)
How to Make It
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Cut the bread into 1/2 inch cubes. These don’t have to be perfect. Place the cubed bread on a prepared baking sheet, and bake in the preheated oven for 7 minutes. This will dry out the bread to make for a better stuffing.
- Remove bread from oven and transfer to a large mixing bowl.
- Raise oven temperature to 450 degrees.
- Go about cleaning the pumpkins as you would for a jack-o’-lantern. Using a strong knife or a knife from a pumpkin carving set, cut a cap out of the pumpkin tops, large enough to have generous openings to add the stuffing later. Clean out the pumpkins, scraping with a large spoon to remove all pulp and seeds.
- Take softened butter and divide, spreading around the inside of the pumpkins and then seasoning generously with salt and pepper. Place pumpkins on the prepared baking sheets.
- Cook the bacon in a skillet on medium-high heat for 10 minutes, turning occasionally with tongs to prevent burning on one side. When done, roughly chop and set aside.
- While bacon is cooking or when done, heat a skillet to medium-high. Add the sausage (casings removed) and diced onions and apples, along with garlic, and cook for 8–10 minutes. Break the sausage up as you go, and scrape the pan often to prevent burning. Sausage is done when no pink remains.
- Add the cooked bacon and cooked sausage mixture to the cubes of bread, along with the cheese, green onions, cranberries, and Italian seasoning. Toss to combine.
- Measure the cream and mix in nutmeg with the cream. Set aside.
- Layer the stuffing in the pumpkins in 3 phases, each time adding some cream to each layer. You do not want to soak the mixture, but you do want it sufficiently moist. The pumpkins should be well-stuffed by the end. If there is extra stuffing, you can place it in a greased baking dish and save to bake later, or you can bake it along with the pumpkins for only 30 minutes (at 350 degrees) of the total baking time.
- Place the caps back on the pumpkins before baking at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. If the pumpkins are browning, cover loosely with foil.
- After 30 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 and bake for 45 more minutes, removing the pumpkin caps when 20 minutes of bake time remains. This allows excess liquid to evaporate and the stuffing to get nice and bubbly.
- The pumpkins are done when the flesh pierces easily with a fork.
- When the pumpkins are done, take extra care when removing from the oven, and transfer to a baking platter or large cutting board. See serving notes below.
Recipe Notes
- Make ahead: The bacon and the sausage can be prepared a day in advance and stored in the refrigerator until ready to use. The bread cubes can be made 2 days in advance and stored in a sealed bag until ready to use.
- When serving, if you are not serving individual pumpkins, then you can take a sharp knife and slice the pumpkins into fourths, serving the stuffing with the pumpkin rind, as it’s edible.
- Serving can be fun to do at the table with everyone around because it’s not every day people get to see a baked pumpkin!
- Serve on a bed of kale with the cider-maple vinaigrette dressing (recipe below).
- This is also a wonderful holiday stuffing.
SIDE: KALE SALAD WITH CIDER-MAPLE VINAIGRETTE
Serves 8
Ingredients You’ll Need
2 (10-ounce) bags kale, prewashed, trimmed, and shredded (if not, you will have to prep)
For Cider-Maple Vinaigrette
2/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
Tools You’ll Need
Salad bowl
Whisk
How to Make It
- Stir all salad dressing ingredients together with a whisk in the bowl you plan to use to serve. Toss prepared kale to coat right before dinner is ready.
DESSERT: ANY-FRUIT CRISP WITH HOMEMADE CARAMEL SAUCE
Serves 16 (I love sending this home with friends for breakfast the next day!)
Apples are the star of this crisp, but you could use any fruit you have on hand, or combination thereof: strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, pears, peaches, or nectarines.
Ingredients You’ll Need
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 large apples (6 cups apples), such as Honeycrisp or Granny Smith, peeled and sliced (For reference, 1 large apple equals 2 cups sliced or chopped.)
1 tablespoon lemon juice (half a lemon)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 egg, whisked
For Caramel Sauce
1/4 cup water
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
Optional Garnishes
Whipped cream
Vanilla ice cream
Tools You’ll Need
Saucepan
Microwave-safe dish (optional)
Apple corer (optional)
Vegetable peeler
Knife
Cutting board
Baking dish (9×13 inch)
Citrus juicer (optional)
Mixing bowl
Whisk
Small bowl for egg
Fork
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Heatproof spoon
How to Make It
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In a saucepan or microwave-safe dish, melt the butter. Set aside.
- Core, peel, and slice apples. If you have an apple corer, that’s great to use, but if you don’t, just peel the apples with a vegetable peeler and then slice as close to the core as you can.
- Place apples (or other seasonal fruit) in your baking dish.
- Sprinkle the lemon juice over the fruit and toss.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together dry ingredients.
- Incorporate the whisked egg, tossing with fork until mixture is a crumbly consistency.
- Sprinkle the flour mixture over fruit. It won’t be perfect, but that’s what this dessert is all about!
- Drizzle the melted butter all over the top.
- Bake 35–40 minutes.
- Meanwhile, make the sauce. In a small saucepan over high heat, dissolve granulated sugar in the water and mix with a heatproof spoon until it comes to a boil.
- Reduce heat to medium and stir consistently, waiting for the mixture to turn a light caramel color. This may take up to 15 minutes.
- When you see the sauce turn the light caramel color, remove from heat and stir in the brown sugar, butter, and heavy cream. This step can cause the caramel to spatter and bubble up, so take care!
- Stir for 1 minute and place back on medium-high heat to bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer the caramel for 3–5 minutes to thicken. If the sugar mixture has clumps, keep stirring until clumps dissolve and become smooth.
- Remove from the stove top and stir in the vanilla extract and salt.
- Allow to cool for a few minutes to thicken further.
- Serve crisp warm with caramel sauce. Add whipped cream and ice cream if you wish!
Recipe Notes
- Make ahead: The caramel sauce can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a week. Before serving, heat on the stove for a few minutes on medium to get to the right consistency for drizzling.
- The best baking apples are tart-sweet apples like Honeycrisp or Granny Smith.
This excerpt from Gather Together: Recipes and Reflections to Inspire Faith and Friendship around the Table is reprinted with permission of Ave Maria Press.
Catherine Fowler Sample wrote and produced the award-winning documentary The Dating Project, for which she appeared on a number of Catholic radio and television stations, including EWTN, CatholicTV, and Relevant Radio. She is the author of Gather Together: Recipes and Reflections to Inspire Faith and Friendship around the Table.
