Active Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 60 minutes
Ingredients
2 cups butternut squash, chopped into 1 inch squares
7 large (or 10 small/medium dates)
1 1/2 cups milk (or half and half for a very rich pie)
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground clove
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Blend butternut, dates, and milk until pureed.
- Add remaining ingredients (eggs, sea salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove) and blend.
- Pour into glass pie pan. [You can, or course, pour it into a crust-lined pan if you prefer a more traditional pie.]
- Bake for about 40 minutes, or until center of pie is just about set and a knife comes out clean when you pierce it.
Anne Eileen Mahler says:
I've got a butternut squash just waiting for this recipe. Thank you!
Cheryl D. says:
You never specified whether you cook the butternut squash first. It is always so difficult to cut that up raw.
Gemma P. says:
Great question, Cheryl. That is the beauty of the recipe. Because you grind the butternut chunks into smithereens (you basically liquify it) it cooks right along with the eggs and milk at the same pace since the whole recipe is a consistent liquid from being in the blender together. It hit me one day that if you're going to blend the butternut after you go to the trouble of roasting it that you could blend it first and skip the roasting part since it's going to get baked anyway. I suppose it might taste slightly different if you roasted it first, but I personally couldn't notice a difference. No one I have served it too has noticed a difference either, they just said it tasted great!
Anne Eileen Mahler says:
What about the skin? I'd be inclined to blend it in with the raw pieces. What do you do?
Gemma P. says:
I think it's fine to leave the skin on and put it in the blender where it too gets liquified so I think your eaters wouldn't know one way or the other if it had skin or not. I leave the skin on. I hear there are lots of nutrients in the skin, so it seems like a good thing as long as your butternut is organic. If it's not organic, I think I would not include the skin (peel it off) because it would still probably have pesticide residues on it.
Gemma P. says:
Cheryl, I was thinking about your comment on how hard it is to chop up a raw butternut. I am not that strong, and I agree. One thing I've found to help a lot when chopping up anything that's hard to cut is to first slice off one end. That gives you a really flat, stable surface to rest on the cutting board. Makes it a lot safer too! If you still find that you don't like cutting it up, go ahead and bake it first so you won't need to chop it up. Which ever way you prefer (chopping or baking) I am sure your dish will turn out great!
Anne Eileen Mahler says:
Thanks, Gemma.