Another fall dish with the butternut squash. I adapted this dish from Martha Stewart’s What to Have for Dinner (New York: Time, 1995), a compilation of recipes from her magazine, arranged by season. I always found it to be a good post Thanksgiving dish to use up all the turkey stock I had from cooking the turkey carcass, even though the recipe calls for chicken stock.

My changes are few:

1. Using more stock instead of wine
2. Using sage instead of rosemary
3. Using ready-made stock if I don’t have any of my own on hand
4. In addition, Stewart’s risotto uses mashed butternut squash, which makes a really thick and hearty consistency to the final product. I like to use half mashed squash and half cubed for a little variety in the consistency.
5. I have made the same recipe with long-grain brown rice, which adds a whole different taste, but today I used the arborio rice called for in traditional risotto.

You can find Stewart’s recipe here: http://www.marthastewart.com/338749/butternut-squash-risotto

Note: If there are people in your family who, like my husband, don’t recognize al dente as a valid stage of doneness, you don’t have to cook the risotto to death, just cover the pan when it’s done and let it sit and steam for a few more minutes until the grains of rice are more fully tender.