Saturday, July 7, 2012

Roasted Squash with Gorgonzola: Relaxing

Husband has been been saying it over and over again for the past couple of months, "Relax honey. Teach less, stress less, yell less, work less, just do less."

It's not really in my nature to do less.  I may be one of those people detailed in the New York Times piece "The Busy Trap" who feel a sense of worth from the amount of "busyness business" in his or her life.  Or it could simply be that I have a lot to do and I can't see my way around doing less.

This certainly was the case in June where I almost couldn't find time to breathe.  I think there were days where I literally didn't go to the bathroom after waking up.  I talked to more people during the month of June that I did for the 5 months prior.  I had more to do, more to arrange, more to teach and more to plan.

But suddenly July has hit, and literally my work load has been cut into a third.  Many of my students travel, so they aren't around.  Son and Daughters' activities have wound down, so there isn't as much driving to do.  I have all three kids going to the same day camp, only half day, which means no lunches to pack and one drop off and one pick up.  Suddenly the day stretches before me and I just have less to do.  And I think God had this little mini break planned for me.  He knew, even when I didn't, that I needed this breathing space.  Believe me, I'm taking advantage of it.  I built a crazy lego staircase with Children, practiced my own music (interrupted by Children very quickly, but no matter), talked to friends on the phone, wrote letters to people, and even took a nap one day.  I took the kids to the library on bikes, talked about summer reading, and even had time to do a goofy dance in the mirror with the kids as they were brushing their teeth.  Their giggles were a sweet sweet sound to me.

I keep relaxing in the kitchen.  Friend SH gave me a peeled, cubed, butternut squash and told me to use it up.  I looked at it and thought, what is the EASIEST thing I can do to this?  I decided to roast the squash and toss some sage and gorgonzola with it.  Voila.  Easiest, most relaxing side dish ever.  This will taste great with chicken or pork, but I just relaxed and had mine with buttered toast.
Roasted Butternut Squash with Sage and Gorgonzola
Serves 4

Ingredients
2 cups peeled, cubed butternut squash (about 1 lb)
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 leaves of sage, finely chopped
1/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Method
Preheat oven to 400.
Toss butternut squash cubes with olive oil, sage, salt, and pepper. Roast squash for 20 minutes, or until tender. Sprinkle gorgonzola on top. The heat of the squash will melt gorgonzola. Serve.

Printable recipe

1 comment:

Sandy said...

I like your husband's philosophy.

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