One of my favorite garden vegetables is squash.  It’s easy to grow, easy to store, easy to cook, and delicious in the fall and can easily last through the winter (if you don’t eat them all up too quickly, as we’ve done 🙂 ).  Squash can be substituted in recipes that call for pumpkin; it makes wonderful desserts, a tasty side dish at dinner, and fills your home full of spicy scents as it cooks.

The following recipe was adapted from one I found on grainfreefoodie.blogspot.com, and it can easily be adjusted to fit your GAPS™ needs.  The recipe as written is Full GAPS™, but if you remove the vanilla, it is acceptable on stage four.  Remove the nuts, and you have a delicious stage three dish!

 

Pecan-Glazed Butternut Squash Pudding

1 small butternut squash, baked

2 Tbs. butter or ghee

2 organic pastured eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

pinch or two of sea salt

 

Glaze:

2 Tbs. butter or ghee, melted

1/4 tsp. sea salt

3/4 cup chopped pecans

 

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

2.  Mix the squash, butter/ghee, eggs, vanilla and sea salt together well.  You can do this by hand, using a hand mixer or putting all the ingredients together in your blender or food processor.

3.  Pour the pudding into an 8×8 glass dish; I use a small casserole dish.

4.  Melt 2 Tbs. butter or ghee.  Add your sea salt and chopped pecans and mix together, coating the pecans.  Using a spoon, spread the pecans lightly over your pudding.

5.  Bake uncovered for 30 minutes.

 

The original recipe called for adding honey to both the pudding and the glaze.  I try to have as many dishes without heated honey as possible, so when I tweaked the recipe, I removed the honey from the dish itself; when we eat the pudding, though, we drizzle a little honey over top to make a sweeter dessert.  Adjust the amount of honey (or no honey at all!) to taste.

 

 

I made this batch of pudding with half of the pudding “nut free” for those of us who are not to that stage yet. 🙂  This is a very easy recipe to adjust to your own dietary needs.  You can also add spices like cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, or add different nuts or dried fruits.  Experiment and have fun!

 

 

~ Alicia