Looking for other Thanksgiving ideas? Start here..
Jump to RecipeWhen I first made this pretty fall recipe, I posted a junky quick photo to facebook with the words, “Did they tell you to bring a salad to Thanksgiving dinner?” My longtime food blogging and fb friend, Mary, piped up that no one in HER family would ever ask someone to bring a salad!!!…and…she’s mostly right. On the other hand, fine Minnesota friend Lani quipped, “I’m saving this!” So, the jury’s out. For now. Salad, however, really is not the first thing we think of for Thanksgiving, is it? (Didn’t we used to have jello salads? Sure, we did. Long ago and far away. For years and years. Mine had cranberries, apples, and pecans in it. I’ll bet some people still make them.) Thanksgiving is all about turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, vegetable casseroles, rolls and butter, pie, and all things crispy on the outside and tender on the inside–including mac and cheese, they say, though I wouldn’t know. (I do make a first course vegetarian soup lately in a feels-like almost useless, spineless effort to serve a curated meal.) It’s also about feeling thick as an ugly tick and wondering if you should just live on cold pumpkin pie, spiked hot tea, aspirin, and Tums the next day. Which is my way of saying that a little fresh something or other isn’t going to hurt anyone and could be the one thing you go back for when it’s time for seconds. And, playing the grandma card here, some fiber might be exactly what’s needed alongside all that mushy food and free-flowing wine. There. Well, now that that’s out of my system, you can serve this sweetish, peppery, briny, “meaty,” salad featuring butternut squash, mushrooms, and arugula anytime. But if you serve it at Thanksgiving, you’ll be happy!
Want to change up the salad? I enjoy the simplicity of this dish with its few ingredients, but you could add a few other things like pickled onion, fresh veggies, chunks of roasted chicken or salmon, and so on. One day when I was serving it leftover as a side, I threw in some diced avocado that needed eating. Avocado would be huge YES! (BTW: This salad does keep overnight, even dressed. It’s not as good as it is fresh, but it’s totally edible.) Different greens might be just fine–say baby spinach if that’s your druthers, but I really like the juxtaposition of peppery arugula with the sweet squash. An easy adaptation is to use diced sweet potatoes or another winter squash instead of butternut squash, though chopped squash from the store is simpler than peeling and cutting one on your own. (If you do use a whole squash, prick it in several places, and stick it in the microwave whole for a 3 three or four minutes and it’ll be easier to peel and dice. Careful! Very hot!) Blue cheese dressing is an acquired taste, so you could spice up a quick, homemade ranch like this one instead. An excellent homemade balsamic vinaigrette is another option.
Blue Cheese: If you’re making the blue cheese dressing (and I hope you are!), do a little googling and taste testing to see which cheese you’d like to use. Price might play a part here, as a Maytag blue (USA) costs a bit less than a Roquefort (France). Personally, I’d rather eat a Roquefort or a Stilton (UK) on their own rather than in a dressing.
Chef Gusteau in the film ‘Ratatouille’ was partly quoting the ancient Roman gourmand Apicius when he said: “Eat with your eyes; good food is like music you can taste, colour you can smell.” Take your time–what’s your hurry?– arranging this salad’s precious elements and create a dish worthy of looking at and eating when you try this:
Butternut Squash-Mushroom Arugula Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing
Ingredients
- ¾ pound butternut squash diced into 1” pieces-about 3 cups
- 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, crushed red pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed between your fingers (or 2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary)
- 8- ounces sliced cremini mushrooms-about 3½ cups raw
- 1 large plump garlic clove, sliced
- 8 cups fresh baby arugula-about 5 ounces
- 16 kalamata olives, pitted (squeeze each one gently to make sure no pits have been left behind)
- Blue cheese dressing-see Cook’s Notes for recipe or make your own.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 F. Position rack at center. Line a small sheet pan with foil and spray or brush with oil.
- In a large bowl, toss squash with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, ¼ teaspoon each kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, a pinch of crushed red pepper, and the rosemary. Tip the squash mixture out onto the prepared sheet pan and spread evenly. Roast about 30 minutes or until tender, turning once midway through roasting time. Remove to rack to cool.
- Meanwhile, add the other tablespoon of olive oil to a medium skillet, heat over medium high flame, and tilt the skillet to spread the oil. Add the sliced mushrooms; sprinkle lightly with black pepper. Sauté, for 5-7 minutes until tender, stirring several times, and adding the sliced garlic for the last two minutes. Sprinkle with a little kosher salt and remove from heat.
- Add the baby arugula to a large serving bowl or platter and sprinkle lightly with salt, pepper and crushed red pepper; toss. Place the roasted squash pieces evenly over the greens and spoon the mushrooms on top. Scatter the olives within the salad (make sure they can be seen) and drizzle with the blue cheese dressing. Grind some black pepper over the entire salad. Serve at room temperature or cover loosely and store undressed in refrigerator for no more than two hours, drizzling with dressing and grinding pepper over just before serving. This salad is edible the following day–don't pitch it– but is really best the day it’s made.MAKE AHEAD: You can cook the squash and mushrooms a day ahead, cover well and refrigerate overnight. Bring to room temperature before making the salad. The blue cheese dressing can also be made a day ahead and stored in a tightly covered jar in the refrigerator.
Notes
• 1/4 cup each: crumbled blue cheese (approx. 1.5 ounces), mayonnaise, and sour cream
• Pinch each: salt and pepper
• 2-3 drops hot sauce or to taste
• 1 tablespoon minced parsley
• 2-3 tablespoons milk– as desired to thin the dressing Mash together the cheese, mayonnaise, and sour cream in a small bowl using a table fork. Stir in the remaining ingredients until well-mixed. Taste and adjust seasonings. (I occasionally add a little grated horseradish or a minced garlic clove or Dijon mustard -or all 3- to this dressing.)
TIPS: 1. Roast double the amount of squash and save some for another night’s side or a great snack. 2. We salt mushrooms toward the end of cooking because if we salt them earlier, they give up their liquid quickly and are tougher.
Full sheet pans (18″ x 26″) are generally used by professional bakers and often don’t fit in home ovens, though they happen to just barely fit in my Blue Star Gas Range oven.
IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE MY:
BELOW: I adore Trader Joe’s Empire brand fresh kosher half turkey breast (they mostly carry it year round) and it makes a lovely one-pan, almost no work dinner when surrounded by a colorful plethora of root vegetables. If I have time, I’ll blog it. For now: See below the photo for basic info in italics. This breast was a little over 3 pounds with a small bone. So it was plenty for a beautiful dinner with leftovers another night and sandwiches.
For 2 with leftovers, for 4 with none, or 6 if you’ve other sides. Drizzle the turkey breast with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Add in a mess of root vegetables drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, and rosemary. Roast at 350F, 20 minutes a pound for a little over 3 pound breast until meat is at 165F. (Stir or turn vegetables once midway through roasting.) Remove meat to a board and cover; spoon veggies into a large bowl and cover, tossing back in oven. While everything rests, make a pan sauce with 1 cup white wine (let reduce a few min.), 1 cup chicken broth, salt, and pepper (simmer…) and finished with a chunk of butter. To drink?? Oregon Pinot Noir and Oregon Pinot Gris.🥂. Time to watch movies all day!
What are the veggies? Carrots, baby potatoes, red beets, thinly sliced parsnips, red and yellow onions, whole garlic cloves, Brussels sprouts cut in half.
Above: I don’t make pasta very often but needed a pick-me-up while cleaning out our spare room and closet. (Goodbye, all that old music. So long dusty books, old letters, cards, and magazines. Toodle-oo artwork we no longer hang. So many memories. Good and bad. Sigh.) This was the Cook’s Country recipe for meatballs in a quick sauce. Easy and worthwhile. Their Cooking for Two recipes are awesome but I’d lie if I didn’t say I had doubled it so I’d have leftovers and a little in the freezer for a meatball sandwich later on! While my drop meatball/sauce recipe was in a 2022 Oct-Nov issue, you can watch the video here. If you have a subscription, you can look up the recipe online.
Also: If you’re interested, you can also buy THE COMPLETE COOKING FOR TWO COOKBOOK, which I recommended in my Cooking for Two class last spring. There’s also ATK Baking for Two.
To Read: NPR/Nutritionist Marion Nestle Weighs in on Food Policy, SNAP, etc.
LIFE GOES ON:
BELOW: Here’s our neighbor, Bob, taking care of business out front. All I could think of was the song, “All God’s critters got a place in the choir.”
BELOW: Our Halloween sunrise–untouched.
Enjoy your November and be thankful even if you only toast the cook at Thanksgiving, which might be you! Hope for peace, an end to hunger, and a uniting of hearts,
Alyce
If I don’t get back soon, here’s your reminder to make my Black Friday Breakfast Turkey Stack!
