Butternut Cassoulet with Bacon and Roasted Garlic

First of all, if you’re not sure how to roast garlic, here’s what ya do: Simply peel off the papery white skin from your garlic bulb (but don’t peel or separate the cloves). Wrap it up good in foil and bake at 350F for an hour. Let it cool 10 minutes, then squeeze it out into a bowl and mash it up.

Heat a large Dutch oven over medium high heat. Throw in your bacon; saute for about 5 minutes, or until things are smellin’ good and gettin’ crispy. Remove your bacon bits to a bowl.

Add your onion and 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan; saute 5 minutes. Then reduce your heat to medium or medium low, and cook for 10 minutes. Add your wine to deglaze the pan a bit, then cook for 15 more minutes, or until your onions are silky and soft and browned. Stir frequently. When they have finished cooking, remove from heat and stir in the white wine vinegar.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium sized roaster or large casserole, mix your onion mixture, garlic pulp, bacon, squash, broth, spices, bay leaf, and beans, stirring well.

Place your bread pieces in a food processor and pulse until they are coarse crumbs. Add the Parmesan cheese and remaining 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil and combine. Sprinkle these crumbs over the top of your squash mixture.

Now you have two options. Cover and bake at 375F for 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until squash is tender.

Alternatively, you can bake this at 325F for about 2 1/4 hours.(This is the one I chose, simply because I was going to be leaving the house around 5:30 for a couple hours and wanted to serve supper around 7:30.)

Either way you choose, take the lid off the last 15 minutes of baking to brown up the topping.

Discard bay leaf and sprinkle with parsley.

Enjoy! Happy squash season!

Love ya,
Cathy B.