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| Squash | Peel squash, remove seeds & pulp, cut into 1-1.5" cubes, toss with a litte olive oil. Roast in 425° oven for 45 minutes or so. Stir once or twice. You are going for lightly browned and reduced moisture in the squash which concentrates flavor. When done, remove from oven, cool, place in large bowl, set aside. |
| In the meanwhile, while the squash roasts, start on the other compenents. | |
| Kale | Remove leaves from stalk. Chop leaves into bite-sized pieces. Either mince the stems and add to the onion when sautéing, or you can discard. Cooking options for the kale leaves, do whatever works best for you: microwave the kale leaves, simmer them in the broth, sauté with the sausage or the mushrooms. |
| Sausage | Brown and crumble sausage, set aside. |
| Mushrooms | Slice the crimini mushrooms (3/8" thick slices). Cut the tough stems off the oyster mushrooms, chop finely. Tear the tender oyster mushroom tops into strips v or chop coarsely. Dry-sauté the mushrooms. This is best done in a heavy pan, like cast-iron. Put some of the mushrooms in the pan, just one layer thick, a little overlap is OK - start at medium heat, turn up as needed... what you are doing is removing excess water from the mushrooms (they are often 90% water). Sprinkle a little salt to help draw out the moisture. As they start to brown, push to the sides, add more mushrooms to the pan. After they are all lightly browned, add 1 Tbs butter. Cook and stir. Add to bowl with squash and sausage. Use a little of the broth to deglaze the pan and get all those flavorful bits off the bottom of the pan. |
| If you have used a really big Dutch-oven for the above, you can use it for the rest of the cooking too. | |
| Onion | Peel & dice onion. Peel and mince garlic (if you are using garlic) Sauté onion in 1 Tbsp butter until translucent (if using, add the garlic). Push onion to sides of pan, add remaining butter to the pan. |
| Rice | Immediately add the rice to the pan containing the onion. Stir and cook for a few minutes until rice grains are coated with butter. Add wine, stir, until rice absorbs the wine, and the rice grains are separated Add the warm broth, one ladle at a time, just enough to cover rice, stir as broth is absorbed. Continue adding broth ½ cup at a time, stir often. If you haven't cooked the kale before now, simmer it in the broth before you have added it all to the rice. |
| Cheese, herbs | Add grated cheese & herbs to the rice, season with salt and pepper. |
| Combine | Mix the squash, sausage, mushrooms & kale into the rice. |