Wednesday dinner: Squash and chickpeas with tahini

Finally, you will be excited to hear, I make something that comes from an actual recipe. I felt it had been a pretty meat-heavy week so far, so I picked up a butternut squash with the intention of making this dinner, because everything else in it was in the house already.

Everything else in my modified version of the recipe, that is. And I'd forgotten about the lemon, but luckily I had a half one in the fridge just waiting for its moment to shine.

This is the recipe as I found it. And this is my version.

I tossed the squash in some more of my fancy garlic olive oil before roasting it, because it was quicker than chopping garlic, and there was going to be garlic in the dressing anyway.

I made the dressing as directed, with tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, water, and garlic. (I always have tahini in the frige for sesame noodles, and it keeps forever.) It came together beautifully before maddeningly curdling. This happened the last time too, and I'm not sure what the problem is, unless I just overmixed it. I couldn't fix it, but it tasted fine. If you can think why it would happen, I'd love to hear your theories in the comments.

Tahini, lemon juice, olive oil; pre-mixing

I tossed the drained chickpeas on top of the squash for the last ten minutes or so of roasting, just to warm them up. I left out the red onion, because as we know, I had no onion in the house, and I don't like raw onion anyway. I also left out the parsley or cilantro, which I'm sure is a terrible travesty, but I turned the whole thing with some baby spinach leaves instead, and called it done. I hoped the spinach would wilt a little in the heat of the squash, but maybe I waited a minute or so too long for that to happen. Either way is good, though.

Because I'm Irish, perhaps, and raised according to the liturgy of spud, I think dinner always has to have a starch, even if it's half starch itself like the squash. Last time I made this I used brown rice, but yesterday I decided on quinoa, which made a nicely light but wholesome base for the salad.

The recipe says to serve immediately, but mine sat around for a good 15 minutes waiting for B to arrive - with both beer and wine, so all was forgiven - and it was still delicious. The second half, in the fridge, will also still be deliciously garlicky and is quite addictive, if perhaps a bit on the claggy side.