Pesto Farro Stuffed Butternut Squash

The creamy garlic herb umami of pesto tossed with a chewy farro (or grain of choice), cauliflower, sweet peppers, spinach and cheese, stuffed into a sweet roasted butternut squash, this dish is not only budget friendly, it’s beautiful, comforting, satisfying and healthy. This stuffed squash makes a perfect plant-based meal or side.

I know, it’s spring, but I have butternut squash on hand that still need using! My mom and dad gave me sooo many squash and pumpkins last fall and even though I gave away a bunch of them to friends, I still had more left at home than I could use at the time. So they sat around my house, waiting for me to get around to using them. And since we are in strange times where we need to make the most of every bit of food available to us (since the future is uncertain, many have lost their jobs (or worse), supplies of many things are waning, and trips to the grocery store are dangerous). We are living in unprecedented times, and unprecedented times call for a different approach to recipes and to life. Instead of rushing to the store to get all the ingredients to make this, think about what you have on hand that you could use to make a beautiful twist on this recipe right now.

For this dish, I pulled together what I could find in my pantry with some things I found in my fridge and my freezer. It’s endlessly adaptable … if you don’t have farro on hand, substitute brown rice or barley or whatever grain you DO have in your pantry. If you don’t have cauliflower, how about broccoli? Or zucchini … or frozen corn? Frozen spinach could be replaced by fresh spinach (cooked), or kale. Take stock of what you have and don’t be afraid to twist this recipe around and make it your own. You could even add meat, sausage or seafood to it if that’s your thing.

I know that not all of you have butternut squash hanging around, so feel free to stuff this into whatever you DO have on hand. Bell peppers, zucchini, mushrooms … you could even tuck it into a pork tenderloin or pound thin and wrap a chicken breast around it … or hey, you can eat the delectable filling as is without stuffing it into anything. (I confess, I might have done that a little.)

Just whatever you do, DON’T leave out the pesto. It doesn’t have to be basil pesto, although that is what I used. You can use store-bought pesto if you like, but pesto is really quite easy to make at home and there are SO many options for making it. If you have a blender or mini food processor, pesto takes about 5 minutes to make and it’s so versatile! For this recipe, you can substitute kale pesto, spinach pesto, sun-dried tomato pesto, mixed herb pesto, asparagus chive pesto or any number of other creative pestos.

By the way, the butternut squash pictures you see here are mini-sized. My daughter loves everything mini sized and she snatched up as many of the tiny squash as she could find in the harvest from mom and dad’s garden last fall. But this amount of stuffing will likely fit inside a normal sized butternut squash, depending on how much space is hollowed out. Make sure you leave a good 1/2 inch of squash in the shell (at least!) so you can grab some good sweet squash flavor to contrast with the savory pesto grain/veggie/cheese filling.

On a personal note, although there has been LOTS of cooking going on at my house, I’m having a hard time posting lately … a hard time focusing. A hard time writing. I’m terrified I’ll never see my parents again. I’ve been afraid of admitting that, of saying it out loud, but there, I said it. I’m trying to keep going, working, caring, but it takes extra effort to connect with family and friends and yoga … although we’ve made it work (via Zoom), it’s not the same, nobody wants to talk about the COVID-19 situation … yet that’s almost all we have to talk about. I’m taking lots of deep breaths, being extra careful, not going out unless I absolutely have to, wearing masks and gloves when I do have to go out, but I’m watching the cases climb in my community and I’m scared. I’m even more scared because there are so many people here (and elsewhere) who seem to be NOT taking precautions and wanting to go on with life as if there weren’t a dangerous, insanely contagious, life-threatening virus amongst us. By ignoring the stay at home guidelines, they are endangering the lives of others (in addition to their own).

On the other side of that, I’m happy some of my recipes are helping people through this crisis, happy my kids love bread because it’s something I find so much comfort in making. I’m so grateful that I have plenty of yeast and sourdough and bread flour, incredibly grateful that just before this got bad, we got a new washer and dryer so we can clean our clothes at home, and while we were redo-ing the laundry room, my son pointed out that we were close to Sam’s club and we should stop and pick up some bread flour. Little did we know how much that would mean in the coming weeks. I’m happy my parents are still healthy and that I can see their faces (on my phone) and talk to them. I’m happy for our cats, who are endless sources of comfort, and so incredibly grateful that my kids are here with me and they are healthy and safe. I’m hoping all of you are safe, healthy, and okay financially. I am grateful for the delivery drivers, the garbage pickup people, those that work at the grocery stores, farms, food packaging facilities, etc., the teachers who are struggling with online learning and the students/parents too … and I’m especially grateful for the medical workers who are literally putting their lives on the line.

Namaste, my friends, wherever you are at. Take some deep breaths. Listen to that beautiful silent place inside of you. Take care of nature. Cook good food. And send love to everyone you can. We all need it right now.

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