So the end of summer has come. No more linen or white in the wardrobe, no more fireworks, but if you are willing to brave a bit of fall chill there is still some great grilling to be had. Plus the denser fall vegetables stand up nice to the grilled meat flavors. Here is all that is great in the middle of september for this #petesplates.
Roasted Butternut Squash and Wild Mushrooms, Fennel and Cherry Tomato Broil with Grilled Skirt Steak
Serves 4
2 # Skirt Steak trimmed
1 large butter nut squash (roughly 6 cups medium diced)
2 yellow onion julienned (2 cups)
4 cups mixed wild mushrooms, rough chopped, but shape maintained ( I used oyster, hedgehog and brown beech)
3 T avocado or olive oil
1 T salt
5 bulbs small fennel, or 3 large sliced tall with roots left intact so they hold together
2 pints cherry heirloom tomatoes, washed and cut in half
5 cloves garlic chopped
2 T avocado or olive oil
1 T dried basil
1 t salt
1 t pepper
Start with the oven at 400F, peel and chop all your butternut squash, onion and shrooms, toss with oil and salt, spread out on two sheet pans and put in oven. Then go get grill going. When grill is good and started, come back in and chop all your fennel, tomatoes and garlic.
The squash should have been in the oven for roughly 35 minutes or so by now, a lot of water will have come out and the vegetables will have shrunk quite a bit. Carefully consolidate the vegetables onto one of the pans. Spread evenly and put back in the oven.
Season steak with salt and pepper, rub with avocado oil.
Toss all fennel, tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, dried basil, salt and pepper together. Place on the sheet pan you just gained from consolidating the squash. Turn your oven onto broil. Place pan roughly 5-6" from top of oven and make sure its on the rack above the squash and shrooms.
Head outside and grill up the steak. 4-6 minutes on each side for a nice medium medium well. That's actually best for this cut of meat. Who knew right?
Pull all the vegetables out of oven while steak is resting on cutting board. Slice the steak against the grain. Enjoy.