Baby Butternut Squash Risotto

We got some baby butternut squash in at work last month and I couldn't figure out what to do with it - then it came to me - risotto! I have cooked butternut squash or risotto myself before so it was alot of fun.

The first thing I got to was cooking the butternut squash - I decided to split them in half and scoop out the huge amount of seeds inside. Then I filled each half with butter and sprinkled with sea salt and cracked black pepper. I put them in the oven at 400 degrees until all the butter was melted.

The most fun for me was all the seeds which I wasn't really expecting! I baked them with the butternut squash. I sprinkled them with garlic salt, cracked black pepper, olive oil and parmesan cheese...mmm!

Before it went in the oven it looked something like this:

And after it came out of the oven:

While the butternut was cooking I got started on the risotto. Being the first time I cooked risotto I went with a basic recipe.

You need the following ingredients:

1 cup white arborio rice

1 tablespoon Olive oil

1 large yellow onion diced

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

5 cups hot chicken stock

1/2 cup white wine

Start with heating oil in a pan on medium and sauté the diced onions until translucent. Add dry arborio rice and stir...continue stirring until a white dot shows in the middle of the rice. Add white wine and stir until absorbed. Then add 1/2 of the stock and stir constantly until the stock is absorbed. Once stock is absorbed add more stock 1 ladel at a time and stir until absorbed, continue doing this until all stock is gone. This should take about 20 minutes and the rice should have a creamy consistancy when you are done. When the last of the stock is absorbed remove from heat and stir in parmesan cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

I couldn't believe that this:

Ended up looking like this:

I made a huge mess and it is very time consuming but it was so good!

By the time the risotto was finished the butternut squash hadn't really had a chance to cool down yet so I scooped it out with an ice cream scoop and mixed it into the risotto.

The end product looked something like this:

But really my favorite out of all of it was really the pumpkin seeds, finally made it feel like fall was here: