I’ve recently decided I need to start eating more seasonal vegetables. It’s better to eat seasonally because the fruits and veggies taste better, and it’s better for the Earth too. Well, it’s a great thought, but poorly timed considering the growing season is over.

Ah ha! That’s where I was wrong you see. There are all sorts of veggies in season that I’d never actually cooked before — an entire veggie playground I plan to frolic in and explore!

Enter: the butternut squash. Great for soups. Great to put on your table at Thanksgiving. And now, great to pair with puffy, buttery pastry for a yummy, vegetable-y meal.

I found a few different recipes that I combined to make this one. This one looked the prettiest!

Let me tell you, the smell of this thing in the oven?

This is probably in the top 5 of Best Things I’ve Ever Made. Really. And that includes the dark chocolate chip & cherry cookies from last week!

Okay, here’s the recipe:

1 small butternut squash, diced
1 small red onion, sliced very thinly
2 cups carrots, diced
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1 garlic clove
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried thyme
6 ounces goat cheese
1 frozen puff pastry

I started by roasting the garlic. Chop off the head of the garlic and drizzle a 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and a pinch of rosemary on top. Wrap it in aluminum foil and set aside.

Coat all of the chopped vegetables in a tablespoon of olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme. Put vegetables on foil-lined baking sheet with the clove of garlic. Roast the vegetables and the garlic in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

When vegetables are good and brown, transfer to a mixing bowl. Remove the cloves of garlic from their papery skin by squeezing one edge of each clove. *Mash garlic cloves together to create a paste, and add to vegetable mix. Crumble the goat cheese into the vegetable mix and toss, letting the cheese melt a little bit.

Follow the instructions on the puff pastry. Heap vegetable mixture onto the center of the pastry, and pat down so it forms a circle, leaving at least three inches around the edge. Fold the pastry onto the vegetable mixture creating a hole in the center of the mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until pastry is golden and crispy. Cut it in to slices and serve with a salad.

*If you aren’t a big garlic fan, only add half of the clove — this had a very garlicky taste!

Boy, oh, boy will you thank me!

PS- If you’re a meat-eater, this would be fantastic with lamb, I think. I would probably just cut the lamb into cubes, coat it in a few tablespoons of olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme, and sear it in a hot pan. Then add it into the vegetable mixture before heaping onto the puff pastry. DELICIOSO!

PPS- I recently fell in love with the blog Spoon Fork Bacon, and I love the graphic treatment they add to all of their photos. As you can tell, I’m copying them a bit. Though they’re photos are so out of this world that I could never compete. Just wanted to throw that out there because stealing ain’t cool. Thanks Jenny and Teri for being so crazy talented!