butternut squash farro-tto
and GOOD MOOD FOOD news!
Back in March, we made farro-tto for the first time with a roasted asparagus rendition. It is an extremely delicious recipe, and, as a bonus, it taught many of you about the art of flipping your Dutch oven lid over to use it as a surface to roast on.
If this was a physical cookbook, I’d have two farro-tto recipes right beside each other, maybe in a vegetarian chapter. The asparagus farro-tto would be the spring/summer version, and this butternut squash version would be the fall/winter version. They are very similar recipes, though this rendition is even simpler than the last.
This version is also a riff on one of the recipes in my most recent version of Good Mood Food, my 5-day meal plans that are written with three things in mind:
To reduce meal-time stress by providing DELICIOUS, simple, easy-to-follow recipes that have overlapping components designed to minimize your overall time in the kitchen.
To improve gut health and reduce bloat.
To alleviate anxiety on a cellular level by incorporating ingredients that literally feed our brains the nutrients they need to thrive and improve our mental health.
The Good Mood Food meal plans are a real passion project of mine, and I hope you’ll join the party! You can of course cook through the plans at any time, but during launch week, I always lead a private Instagram group through the entire week, sharing tips, tricks, and nutritional information about why we are eating the foods we are eating. This is the third Good Mood Food plan I’ve written, and given that it’s the busy holiday season, it is specifically designed to require the least amount of effort of all of them. As always, there are substitutions listed for all tricky ingredients (i.e. all major allergens and common dislikes).
In addition to cooking through the recipes on Instagram stories, we are also doing several group cooking AND fitness classes! I’ve brought fitness guru Addy Collett in on the GMF fun this time and she’ll be leading TWO group Zoom fitness classes for us! Of course these are fully optional and just added perks for being a part of the GMF crew!
Ok, ok, what’s the freaking recipe of the week?!
This butternut squash farro-tto is a one-pot, whole-grain, winter wonderland. Seriously, this is cozy, wholesome food at its finest. Farro is cooked until tender and creamy, giving us a risotto vibe with so many more important nutrients.
There are a lot of vegetables and grains in this dish, but there’s also a nice, humble amount of cheese for flavor and richness. If you buy pre-chopped onions, frozen minced garlic cubes, and pre-chopped butternut squash, you can just dump everything in the pot and have dinner on the table in under 45 minutes total, with only about 5 minutes of actual work.
creamy butternut squash farro-tto
Makes 4 to 6 servings
Time: ~15 minutes active (or as little as 5 with certain subs!); 45-55 minutes total
Tools:
Large ovenproof pot with a lid, such as a Dutch oven, braiser, stainless steel pot, or cast iron skillet (if using the latter, use a baking sheet as a lid!)
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