Post-apocalyptic dinner

Well hello there. I see you’re still alive. Made it through both the apocalypse AND Christmas, then? Well done!

Surviving the apocalypse is not that big a deal, I guess – we’ve had several in the past few years and each one of them has been very unsatisfactory, from a destructive point of view, of course. I myself wasn’t really looking forward to the end of the world as we know it anyway, so I cant say I was very bothered by the disappointing outcome.

I believe Christmas will actually have posed more of a challenge to most people, as I understand that for most of the population the holidays are a bit of an ordeal. I enjoy the holidays, but I’m just lucky to have fun relatives, plus I’m way too excited about eating.

But it’s the 26^th today and there’s a fair chance that you’re fed up with food by now. You’ll have had 2 nights of getting stuffed with too much food at Gran’s (first your own, then your spouse’s), and now you can’t imagine ever being hungry again. Like when you get dumped and you can’t imagine ever being in love again, or when you get soaking wet in a blizzard and you can’t imagine ever being dry and warm again, the most recent impression is always the strongest.

Take it from me though, when all of this Christmas is over (today or tomorrow, depending on which country you’re in), it’ll only take about a day (or rather, a night’s sleep) and you’ll get peckish again. If you’re having trouble, I suggest you skip breakfast and lunch. By dinner I’m pretty sure you’ll want to eat. The only problem is that you’ll feel guilty.

That’s why you could have this! Stuffed butternut squash. You can whip it up from left-overs you’ll probably still have in the fridge (or is that just me, having these things in the fridge?), and it’s vegetarian so fewer calories. Kinda. Except the creamy goat’s cheese. But relax. You survived yet another apocalypse. You deserve this.

For about 2 people, you will need:

• The bottom half of one squash
• half a red onion
• less than half a courgette
• some goat’s cheese, probably between 50 and 100 gr
• a clove of garlic
• two tbsp pine nuts
• some olive oil

Clean the squash on the outside, then cut it in quarters, remove the seeds. Save them, wipe them off with some kitchen tissue or a towel and cover them with oil and salt. They’ll make a tasty snack if you bake them in the oven for about 10 minutes on a sheet of baking parchment.

Use a small knife to carve a tartan pattern (or something) into the squash, it’ll soak up the cheese that way. Now mash the goat’s cheese with a tsp of olive oil so that it becomes easy to spread, and cover the squash quarters with the mixture.

Slice the courgette into smallish chunks, chop the onion and the garlic and mix all the vegetable chunks with the pine nuts. Put this mixture into the squash quarters and bake them for about 40 minutes. You can eat the skin, but better avoid the dark bottom bits, they’re a bit hard.

About these ads