butternut squash enchiladas!

i was on the vegetarian times website, and i found a recipe for butternut squash tacos that was apparently formulated by a theatre student and modeled after a dish served at (seva), a vegetarian restaurant in ann arbor. being as i'm a theatre student and seva is by far my favorite restaurant within a two hour driving radius (went there for my birthday dinner last year), i was sure that something divine was at work. and after eating this recipe, i'm convinced of the divine.

here is the link to the v-times website and the recipe for: (butternut squash enchiladas!)

the process, you may be surprised to learn, begins with roasting the squash. it is hard to cut. i may have enlisted help. pre-roasting:

post-roasting:

and mashed:

in the meantime, we have our usual base player, the onion:

something very, very bad happened during chopping. it involved the knife thinking my thumb was an onion. bad knife. it was punished later on.

the onions that were not my thumb cooked with some garlic.

meanwhile, i chopped the canned chipotles in adobo sauce, which i made the mistake of tasting. and touching. dang, that suff is hot.

and red!

the secret ingredient here is reduced fat cream cheese. who knew?

and green onions - but you must add them after the rest of the filling has initially been cooked.

and now comes the arranging of the casserole dish. yes, i used canned enchilada sauce, and i liked it:

here i am putting filling in a tortilla:

i'd like to point out that, after i filled the casserole dish, i was informed there's an actual technique to assembling the enchiladas. *they say nothing is more expensive than regret!*

pre-oven:

post-oven:

you need to make this. you can serve it with lettuce, tomatoes, and avocado slices. and you can imagine you are at seva, or you that you are on TOP CHEF. you can give yourself five stars - i promise padma will not shame you before the crowd and ask you to pack your knives and go.