{"id":21,"date":"2014-10-07T15:47:08","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T15:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/betondinner.com\/?p=21"},"modified":"2018-03-23T19:35:55","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T19:35:55","slug":"cheesy-squash-casserole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/betondinner.com\/cheesy-squash-casserole\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheesy Squash Casserole."},"content":{"rendered":"

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This is not a casserole blog. I’m not a casserole person. But I love\u00a0this squash casserole. So it’s not exactly representative of what I typically cook, but after toying with the idea of having a food blog for…years…for some reason, this\u00a0was the day. Because, you know, nothing screams “take on a new project!” like having a 10-week-old baby.<\/p>\n

It didn’t seem like the worst<\/em>\u00a0time to jump into blogging, since the casserole was for a church event and I wasn’t actually making “dinner” with a hungry family waiting to eat it. So I started taking pictures. Please don’t mind the fact that I hadn’t cleared any of the junk<\/del> highly necessary items off of the\u00a0counters.<\/p>\n

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Jay’s parents had a super successful garden this summer. Like…I couldn’t figure out why they kept bringing us bagsuponbagsuponbags<\/em> of vegetables, until one week they were out of town and Jay, our older daughter, and my extremely pregnant self took care of harvesting.\u00a0And I gained a whole new appreciation for farmers and pioneers and anyone who has ever picked a zillion green beans at 3 pm in 90 degree heat while great with child. So…we ate a lot of vegetables\u00a0this summer. And we froze a lot of vegetables. I have lots…LOTS…of bags just like this in our freezer. The moral of this story, however, is that I have no idea how much squash this is. This is a bunch of sliced, parboiled squash, and that is all I have to say about that.<\/p>\n

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I had made this casserole (Ina Garten’s Zucchini Gratin<\/a>) once before, and followed the recipe exactly, so I can tell you it works perfectly as she wrote it (which should surprise no one – she’s the best). I can also tell you it works perfectly if you measure almost nothing and make roughly 1-1\/2 times the amount and bake it right in the cast iron skillet with shameful amounts of crunchy, cheesy topping.<\/p>\n

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My older daughter LOVES to help in the kitchen. She found two big onions for me in the pantry. She’s wearing pjs…because pjs > clothes, obviously.<\/p>\n

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I sliced them into thin half-moons and then cut those in half.<\/div>\n
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Ina’s recipe called for 6 tablespoons of butter, which seemed excessive to me, so I used 4 tablespoons in this big batch. I felt confident\u00a0about cutting it down since all summer my go-to squash “recipe” was to throw 2 tablespoons of butter, one sliced onion, and 4-ish squash (squashes?)…more or less depending on their size…in a skillet for around 30 minutes, with plenty of salt and pepper, letting it barely caramelize at the end. So simple and good. This casserole just takes things a few delicious steps farther.<\/div>\n
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Because my squash was already partly cooked, and because Ina said to, I cooked my onions alone for a while in the butter. In this skillet and on my stove, medium was a good temperature to get them softened but not brown. And really, if they start to brown, no harm done!<\/div>\n
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Then I added\u00a0my thawed squash and generously seasoned with kosher salt and pepper. Yellow squash doesn’t have a ton of flavor on its own, so don’t be shy, and taste as you go!<\/div>\n
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I did measure the nutmeg since since I didn’t want it to be overpowering, and stuck with Ina’s 1\/4 teaspoon even though I was increasing the other ingredients.<\/p>\n

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Once the onions and squash had cooked down and most of the liquid that had been cooking out had evaporated, I sprinkled on the flour (about 3 tablespoons) and stirred that around for a minute, then added 1-1\/3 cups of warm milk and let it thicken on low heat for a couple of minutes.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0While the squash was cooking, I discovered that I had no bread, no dry breadcrumbs, no panko, no nothing. I had a freezer bag with less than half a cup of whole wheat bread crumbs left from something sometime, and then I dug up a few pieces of baguette in the freezer. I lightly toasted them and put it all in the food processor.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ina uses gruyere cheese, but I was going with what I had on hand, so I used half a block of cheddar (Cabot Extra Sharp – it’s my favorite, favorite, favorite) and a chunk of asiago, for about 1-1\/2 cups total.\u00a0I doubled the topping ingredients, since I had a lot of surface area in\u00a0the cast iron skillet. Plus it’s arguably the best part.<\/p>\n

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I combined the cheese and bread crumbs and sprinkled it right\u00a0over the squash and onions. I\u00a0drizzled a little olive oil over the top and stuck the whole thing in the oven. You could definitely transfer to a casserole dish, and I think this large version still would have fit\u00a0in a 9×13 pan. But I loved the look in the cast iron skillet, and not having to wash an extra dish!<\/p>\n

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I baked the casserole for 20 minutes at 400 until it was bubbly and brown. At this point, my older daughter was making sad, grumpy\u00a0noises which is when I realized I hadn’t given one.single.thought to what I was going to feed her<\/em>\u00a0for dinner. Whoopsies. Fortunately, since she was all hopped up on a-babysitter-is-coming adrenaline, she thought scrambled eggs sounded good. With a side of leftover brown rice. With a side of grapes. With a side of carrots, with a side of peanut butter. Also known as a big plate of things that shouldn’t be on the same plate.<\/p>\n

Then I almost failed at my first bloggable recipe when I forgot to take a picture of the final product\u00a0until it was riding in the passenger seat!<\/div>\n
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This Thanksgiving-esque\u00a0spread was in celebration of the five year anniversary of our church’s first worship service. It was a serious feast, and so sweet to eat together and rejoice in God’s work over the last five years.<\/p>\n

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And the casserole\u00a0was delicious! Make it for Thanksgiving or a potluck or dinner…or weekly, because we haven’t even dented the\u00a0Squash Stash.<\/div>\nPrint<\/a>
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