Garlic & Basil Loaded Roasted Squash

In case you're new here or hadn't worked it out yet, the way I generally make food happen is by bunging everything I have into a pot, picking some main flavours to add, cooking it all until it's done and hoping for the best.

It turns out this method of cooking works really well for vegan diets. Do you know what goes really well with veg? Other veg! You can put any veg you like in a pot, and then just decide if you want the flavour be chilli, curry, Asian, herby...etc.

For dinner tonight I had a wickedly tasty pile of comfort food which was all of my favourite things; cheap, easy, filling, delicious and full of actual nourishment.

I had a lovely little celebration squash in my equally lovely Kent Veg Box this week, and obviously the best way to prep squash for eating is to roast it. Not content with just roasted squash, I fancied a mixed veg and bean thing and having consumed rather large amounts of curry, chilli and Chinese style dishes recently, I thought I'd tone things down with a bit of garlic and basil.

I've started to notice that my tolerance to garlic is pretty high now, so in order to get my garlic fix I no longer soften it first, but just minced the cloves and throw them in later to keep a bit of rawness. Obviously if you don't like your garlic so obvious, feel free to either use less or cook it more.

And that is how this mighty meal was born.

Nomen.

Garlic & Basil Loaded Roasted Squash

serves loads of munchers with more squash

for the squash

1 celebration squash, halved and seeds removed

some garlic pepper

some dried Italian herbs

some celery salt

some olive oil

for the garlic & basil bean mix

a little olive oil

1 red onion, sliced

1 white onion, sliced

1 leek, sliced

1 celery rib, sliced

1/2 yellow pepper, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

handful of julienned carrots

1/3 head of cauliflower, broken into florets

tin of mixed beans, drained

three handfuls of broad beans, shucked

a few sprigs of basil, leaves picked and roughly torn

1 veggie stock cube

pepper

2 handfuls of spring greens, shredded

1. Preheat your oven to gas mark 5 or equivalent.
2. Lightly brush the inside of your squash with olive oil and then sprinkle with the garlic pepper, Italian seasoning and celery salt and then pop in the oven for about 45 minutes.
3. In a large saucepan over a low heat, put a smidgen of olive oil to gently lubricate the pan. Slowly soften your onion, leek, celery & pepper.
4. Once soft, throw in all of the rest of the beans and veg (except the garlic, basil and spring greens), top with about an inch of water, add the stock cube, season with pepper and bring to the boil.
5. Next throw in your basil and garlic, turn the heat down to the lowest setting, stir everything and pop the lid on to steam everything for 20 minutes or so.
6. Once your veg and squash is nearly done, throw your spring greens on top and steam for the last 3-5minutes.
7. Serve your bean mix atop your squash and greens, making sure to drizzle some of the bean gravy over the top of everything.
8. In fact mash everything together, it tastes all creamy and comforting and just bloody delicious.
9. Dooooooooo iiiiiiiiit.
10. Now.