I know that you have all been waiting with baited breath to see what I’ve done with my porcini haul.  I’ve made a porcini and leek frittata which I will feature in a later post, and today I’m going to tell you about one of the best meals I’ve ever cooked in my life. It was so incredibly amazing that all I wanted to do this week was stay home from work and cook all day and eat my food. This was my second time cooking this butternut squash dish – the first time I made it was that fateful night before Christmas where I discovered Jerusalem at my friend Meera’s house.  This dish is freaking delicious. It is not that complicated but it is so insanely flavorful and fulfilling that I think you have to go home and cook it like right now! The hardest part of cooking this dish is cutting up the butternut squash, which admittedly, requires guns.  This recipe can be found on pg. 36 of Jerusalem and is featured online here and on another Ottolenghi admirer’s blog here. Before embarking on the arduous task of cubing the squash, remember to preheat your oven to 475 degrees F.

After cubing the squash, you can congratulate yourself, because the hardest part is now over! Next roughly slice 2 red onions and add them to the squash, then add 3.5 tbsp of olive oil and some salt and pepper before sticking it in the oven for 40 minutes.

While it’s in the oven you can make the tahini sauce, which is super simple. Whisk together 3.5 tbsp light tahini paste, 2 tbsp water, 1 small crushed garlic clove, and 1/4 tsp salt.

You can also saute the pine nuts in 1.5 tsp olive oil with 0.5 tsp salt for 2 minutes.  Once they are golden brown, remove them from heat and transfer them to a small bowl while you wait for the squash. After 40 minutes, the squash and onions should be nice and soft.

Once it’s cooled down a bit, toss the squash and onions with the tahini sauce, add in the pine nuts with their oil, and top with 1 tbsp za’atar. This dish is just so so good. I really cannot emphasize enough how much I love this dish!

I decided to try my hand again at the couscous with tomato and onion that I made the other night with my friend Dan and featured here.

It accompanied the butternut squash & red onions with tahini dish really well and I have to say I was really pleased with myself that I managed to get the crust right this time :) I got a really crispy crust on the edge (I just had to let it sit in the pan a bit longer) and I managed to flip it over onto the plate completely in tact! I didn’t spill any couscous on the floor this time! The only plate that I had that was large enough for this task was a orange flower platter that I had from the 99 cents store when I first started grad school. Perhaps not my classiest dish, but it was big enough that I got the couscous flipped onto it without dropping any, so it definitely did the job.  I am very proud of this dish :) Definitely proof that practice makes perfect!

I know what you are thinking – where are the mushrooms? Don’t worry – I definitely made them! They were so meaty and delicious and added so much depth to the experience of this meal.  Asparagus is in season now and was on sale at the Berkeley bowl so I added that to my pan with with the mushrooms.

Here’s my crispy couscous  with the asparagus and porcinis.

How beautiful do those porcinis look? This is how you want them – nice and browned.

Ok, let’s get a close up of my star ingredient.

And here is the completed meal! My friend Simone, who is another biology graduate student and a talented artist as well who makes really cool biological themed mythical paintings, came over to enjoy the meal with me. Maybe I can convince Simone to make some beautiful mushroom themed paintings for me!