Butternut squash gratin

I had a couple requests for the recipe for the butternut squash gratin I made for the small household food exchange, so I thought I would just post the recipe here. The recipe is adapted from the pumpkin gratin recipe in Marlena Spieler's cookbook The Vegetarian Bistro (which is a great cookbook). Interestingly, Spieler is not a vegetarian, she wrote the book after traveling in France with a vegetarian friend which made her realize how great vegetarian French food is.
Ingredients:
1.5-2 lb butternut squash-1 cm dice
1 leek, diced
1 T butter
2 T olive oil
crushed red pepper
1 red bell pepper, diced
2-3 medium tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup dry white wine (I used an Alsatian Riesling for this batch)
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 minced garlic cloves
2 T tomato paste
1/2 t herbes de provence
S&P
6 T grated cheese (I used parmesan)
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 t olive oil

I roast the squash in advance while Spieler recommends sauteing it. I toss it with about 1 T olive oil, a sprinkling of kosher salt and crushed red pepper at 425 for about 10-15 minutes (until easy to pierce with a fork but not all the way cooked)
Saute leek in 1T each oo and butter until just beginning to brown. Add red pepper and tomatoes and cook about 15 min. Add wine and cook until reduced by half. Add tomato paste, cream, 1 clove garlic, herbes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add cooked squash and cook 1 more minute, then put mixture in baking dish. Mix together bread crumbs, olive oil, 2 cl garlic and cheese and sprinkle on top. Bake about 20 minutes at 350.

Before adding topping


Finished gratin

This looks fabulous. I'm always looking for something new for my vegetarian daughter and I'm going to try it next week. Thanks for sharing the recipe!

Suzy

I can attest that this is a delicious dish. Thanks for posting the recipe!

Hi, I am making this right now. I see the tomato paste in the ingredients. Where does it go in in the recipe....with the cream? It looks like this will make about 6 side dish servings.....

Food Nut wrote:Where does it go in in the recipe....with the cream?

Yep, with the cream. I'll amend the initial post as well.

Thanks. I felt compelled to add a bit more cream as well.