Are you guys getting pumped for eating 9 different kinds of pie turkey and gravy this week? When I was a kid, Thanksgiving was always at my great Aunt Pauline’s house. It was The Event of The Year in my 7-year-old eyes. (Never trust me when I say I was 7 years old. The truth is that I can’t remember anything chronologically before roughly the age of 12, so all childhood memories fall under my favorite number, 7.)
Anyway, Thanksgiving at Pauline’s was awesome. Even though all I liked was the mashed potatoes and white turkey meat. I would literally fill my entire plate with white meat, potatoes, gravy, and a roll. Then I would wait around impatiently for all the old people to finish eating their third plates so that we could get on with dessert.
But before dessert we always went on our annual walk. You only have 2 options after eating that much food: Sink into the couch in a turkey-induced coma, or walk it off. We chose the walk. We always brought a football to toss around (and I always avoided it. Footballs and I do not get along. I mean, balls of any kind are horrible, but footballs are painfully pointy. On both ends. It’s a sport-phobic’s worst nightmare.)
One year we couldn’t find a football but couldn’t kick the tradition, so we tossed around a roll of toilet paper. (I played that year. I mean, it was Quilted Northern. It’s like getting a blanket thrown at you. I can handle that.) So what did you guys do for Thanksgiving when you were kids? Don’t pretend you were the kid eating the salad and token green vegetables. I know you’re lying.
This fun little appetizer would be perfect for all your guests to munch on while you put the finishing touches on your turkey. If you have the butternut squash chopped beforehand, it is really easy to throw together. (There is a tutorial on how to chop butternut squash below the recipe, check it out.) You could even toast the crostini the day before to have even less work to do the day-of. I love butternut squash, but when you combine it with goat cheese something magical happens…magical, I tell you!
There she is. She’s a beaut. Place a super-sharp chef’s knife straight down into the top. Carefully push straight down, then start to move down the side. Go all the way down then back up the other side. Place both halves down and chop off the tops and bottoms. Clean out the gunk. Use the lid of a canning jar, it’s sharper than a spoon. Peel that baby up. Make sure you get off all the tough skin, you want it to be nice and orange. Chop em in half. Flip it up vertically and slice. Then slice it…like that. Then dice! Cutting it like this will get you the fine dice that you need for this recipe. I recommend dicing like this for the cup and a half you need, then chopping into one-inch cubes to freeze and/or save for another use, like butternut squash soup.
