Sliding in at the end of Orange Skies week at I Heart Cooking Clubs with this Winter Squash Pizza Bake. For Orange Skies week we were to use an orange fruit or vegetable recipe, and I've had my eye on the recipe for Winter Squash Pizza in Tessa's book Apples for Jam since I first flipped through it a few months ago. I love squash and pizza and this recipe just plain old sounded good to me.
Winter Squash Pizza
Tessa Kiros -- Apples for Jam, page 82
1/2 small winter squash (I used a butternut squash)
salt
5 to 8 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup all purpose flour, for dusting -- I only needed about 1/2 cup
1 - 8 ounce can tomato sauce
1 to 2 teaspoons dried oregano -- I used an Italian seasoning spice blend that included oregano
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
Peet the winter squash, cut out the seeds and cute the flesh into very thin long slices about 1/16 inch thick. Put the slices in a colander; sprinkle with salt and leave for about 1 hour. Rinse them very well and pat them dry. Preheat oven to 350.
Drizzle 2 and 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil into a round 10 or 12 inch baking pan (I used a 10 inch springform pan) and spread it to coat the bottom of the pan. Put the flour on a plate and pat both sides of the squash slices in it. Make a slightly overlapping layer of slices in the baking pan. Trickle the tiniest bit of olive oil over this layer; then repeat the layering and oiling until you have used up all the squash -- you should have four or five layers.
Mix a little salt into the tomato sauce (taste first and make sure extra salt is needed!) and dot here and there over the top of the squash. Put into the oven and bake for about 50 minutes, until the bottom is sizzling and the top is turning quite golden. Scatter the oregano over the top, crushing it between your fingers.
Sprinkle with the mozzarella and return to the oven for 5 or 10 minutes, until the cheese melts and browns slightly. I broiled for a touch at the end to brown the cheese.
Cool a little before serving in wedges like pizza.
I thought this was pretty good. I'm not quite sure about the "wedges like pizza" because the squash was very thoroughly cooked (meaning mushy, as squash gets) by the end of the 60 minutes in the oven. The edges were a little crispy with the cheese, but this was more of a scoop and use a fork kind of dish. I thought this would have been great served with some crusty bread to serve this on.
Although I enjoyed this, my kids were not convinced and only had one bite each, the in-house required bite to try something new to see if they like it, and they all apparently didn't...my kids are on an anti-squash kick lately and I'm not sure why since I love all kinds of squash. Maybe picky daddy's tastes are rubbing off (he is an avid squash hater). I would say if you love pizza and love squash, as I do, give this a go, but if you are on the fence and don't like the texture of squash maybe this isn't the one to turn you into a squash lover. I'm glad I tried it and could see making it again if I had some extra squash to use up, I would just be prepared to make a seperate dinner for everyone else :)
