Butternut Squash and Barley Risotto

I pretty much had the whole day off yesterday and got really inspired to cook again! I spent sometime blogging and got some great ideas. Then I went straight to the kitchen and put myself to work!

I was so excited because my boyfriend Ryan came over for dinner and I haven't really had the chance to cook for him before. And he liked it! He even had seconds, so I know he actually liked it! He's trying to eat all healthy now too so I have even more incentive to start cooking again!

Risotto is a traditional Italian dish made from rice. It's creamy and generally made with lots of parmesan cheese which makes it difficult to make vegan. However, with the consistency of squash I would say this dish came out relatively similar to a traditional risotto.

The other really exciting thing about this cooking adventure was that I finally used my new Misto! It's an oil sprayer that you fill up with whatever oil you like, which is so great because you put all kinds of healthy oils like flaxseed or grapeseed! I put grapeseed in mine since I was going to be using it to line pans for cooking most of time. Grapeseed is an excellent oil for maintaining nutrients under high heat.

Recipe
grapeseed oil
small butternut squash
1 sweet onion
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
half a lemon
10 or so fresh sage leaves
3/4 C barley

Peel, seed and cube the butternut squash. Dice the onion. Spray an oven dish with grapeseed oil or you can toss the veggies in a little drizzle. Layer butternut squash and onion in the dish. Squeeze the lemon juice over the top, add garlic and finely diced sage. Mix all around and bake for about an hour at 350 degrees. Keep checking the squash by piercing a knife, you want the squash very done.Cook the barley as directed. Generally, you'll want to start with doubling the amount of water to barley, so in this recipe use 1 1/2 C water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to low and let simmer for 20 minutes. I added about another C of water and kept letting it simmer for another 15 minutes probably, for this recipe you'll want it well cooked. Once the butternut squash is done, using a fork mash it well and then fold into the pan with steaming hot barley and mix together thoroughly.

Enjoy,
<3 Dani