I’m going to start out by saying that prior to making this recipe, I didn’t know what a butternut squash looked like… Thank God Brittany was with me on my trip to the grocery store and was able to correct my mistake when I grabbed an acorn squash on accident! One thing to keep in mind when selecting your squash would be to that you only need about 2 cups to complete the recipe, so don’t do what I did and grab the biggest one you can find; (it cost like $10 at CUB) you only need a small one.
The inspiration for making this dish came from a trip to the north shore that Brittany and I made earlier this month, where wild rice is prevalent and advertised everywhere! I couldn’t help myself, so I picked up a bag and set to work finding a way to make use of it.
I shouldn’t be surprised that my search lead me back to my favorite food blog: Pinch of Yum. There I was able to find this colorful dish to feature my wild rice. (this is their recipe)
I realize that spring time isn’t really the best season to be making this dish, since it draws more on fall flavors, but it’s been an odd spring here in Minnesota and has been cold and wet, so I figured this would be a great time to test out this recipe.
If you don’t have some wonderful wild rice sitting in your cupboard, you can follow this link
Notes
I used real wild rice which takes 40 minutes to cook, you can use fast cooking wild rice to cut down on the prep time. I also wasn't able to find "baby kale" so I just used regular kale.
Ingredients
- 1 small onion, minced
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 cups peeled, cubed butternut squash
- ¼ teaspoon dried thyme (more to taste)
- 2 cups cooked wild rice
- 2 cups baby kale
- 2 cups chopped (crispy juicy unpeeled) apples, I used 1 fuji apple
- 2 tablespoons cream (I used half and half)
- ½ cup shredded Provolone cheese
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Sauté the onion and butter in a large skillet over medium high heat until the onions are soft and translucent.
- Add the squash and thyme; sauté for 5-8 minutes, until the squash is fork-tender but not mushy. Add the baby kale and wild rice and stir to combine. Add the cream if the mixture needs a little moisture to help it combine.
- Add the apples last so they stay crispy. Add the cheese and stir a few times to get it melted into the ingredients.