Butternut Squash Souffle

I think I owe you a recipe from last week and a game plan for this week.  Somehow I doubt anyone has been holding their breath, at least not for recipes.  The news has just been too riveting to take time out for cooking or even eating properly.  I've been ordering in high calorie comfort food, and noshing constantly (anything tastes better than my own nails).   Tonight is a special occasion though, one that deserves a little something special.  I will make my own high calorie comfort food to fuel us as we watch the second presidential debate.  

I love this season (the annual climate season).  The sunsets are redder, the ocean sounds louder and the air smells clean.  Skeletons, ghosts and musical tomb stones abound.  We painted my house this time last year.  I had a crew of 20 men crawling up and down the walls outside, slathering orange, black and pink all over.  We must have thought Halloween would go on all year...  

Or it could have been the butternut squash juice cocktail.  My friend Chris told me about it.  I simplified her recipe and juiced raw butternut squash and serve it over ice with a generous splash of velvet falernum and rum.

At any rate, I reconnected with the butternut squash after years of giving preferential treatment to the kabocha squash.  Here is a recipe I developed for my Thanksgiving meal last year, one of 11 courses.

12 oz roasted butternut squash flesh (Cut up a butternut squash, scrape out seeds, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle generously with salt and pepper, and roast in a 425 degree oven for one hour.  Then scoop out the flesh from the skin using a spoon.)

3 egg  yolks

pinch nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 cup milk                                                                               

3 egg whites beaten to stiff peaks

Cook flour and butter together until smooth.  Add milk and cook until thick.  Allow to cool in the bowl of a food processor.  Add squash, egg yolks and spices, process until smooth.  Transfer to a bowl.  Using a spatula, fold the beaten egg whites gently into the squash mixture, careful not to deflate.  Pour into a generously buttered souffle dish,  which is set in a large baking dish with boiling water up to about half-way up the souffle dish, and bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes or until set.  You may use ramekins, keeping in mind that the larger the baking dish, the longer the cooking time in a cooler oven.

For 4-oz ramekins, bake in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, until set.  Make sure you use butter on the dish so the souffle can slide up and rise over the top of the dish.