Yellow Squash Au Gratin

First, the pan. 5 bucks at the Ohio City Yard Sale. Score. Thanks to a friend that willing to hold it for me (for a loaf of OTR bread as a holding fee), a lovely little copper lined gratin dish was mine. Perfect timing too, because there was neighborhood potluck and I really wasn't feeling like making anything. Nothing motivates like a new toy. That, and fridge full of some quality homegrown produce. The squash are merciless.

After googling around for squash au gratin, there was some good stuff but nothing really blew me away. So I aggregated some of the concepts, and the above happened. It's a one pot meal, something I never seem to be able to do. The CFT does not particularly endorse one pot cooking, but when it works out that's kind of nice.

The ingredients were: one 2 lbs squash (yes, I weighed it, and it was exactly two pounds), a little onion, thyme, salt, pepper, nutmeg, heavy cream, cheddar cheese, pecorino cheese, bread crumbs, butter, flour, and a little olive oil.

The squash got super roughly diced and sauteed in butter with the onion and a little salt and pepper (I didn't presalt the squash like a lot of recipes recommend. There wasn't a problem--any extra moisture cooked off during the saute. YMMV). That went on for about 15 minutes, and at some point in there thyme leaves were thrown in. When the squash was just about a nice tenderness, in went a tablespoon of flour. The flour got stirred around and evenly distributed. Then in went a pint of heavy cream to cook down for a bit. Also a little nutmeg and more salt and pepper.

When everything was all nice and creamy and thick, the heat was turned off and the mix was topped with shredded cheddar and a bit of pecorino. Over that went some breadcrumbs that had been mixed with just the tiniest amount of olive oil to moisten them up. All that got tossed into a 450 oven until the breadcrumbs were golden and the sauce bubbly, and that was it. Served at room temp it was pretty good.

Not the healthiest thing ever, but a great way to use that summer squash.