Squash Enchiladas with Roasted Tomatillo Sauce

A friend of mine mentioned squash enchiladas the other day. The plus the large amount of winter squash that I don't really have any recipes for inspire me, so I started looking through Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Sure enough I found one of his suggestions to use winter squash as a filling for enchiladas. If you don't know Mark Bittman, his books and NY Times writing are great- he can teach you how to cook. What he does is gives a basic recipe and then he'll give you a list of ideas to tinker with it or substitute in it. Another suggestion he added to his enchilada recipe was to make a green enchilada sauce, which is basically salsa verde run through a blender. It's a great pairing with the squash! Here's what you do. Get a winter squash, 10-12 tomatillo (husked and rinsed) a couple poblano peppers and one or two little hot peppers. Roast all of those in the oven at around 375-400 degrees. (Squash can be roasted whole with a couple stabs of a knife and will take anywhere from 45 min. to 1.5 hours. Tomatillos and peppers should be in about 20 minutes). In a large skillet heat oil on med. and cook 1-2 onions (chopped) and 5 cloves garlic (minced) until very soft and then add the tomatillos and peppers roughly chopped along with 1 cup of veggie stock or water 1 tsp. oregano (mexican, if you have it) and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook that all for 10-15 minutes until some liquid evaporates and it thickens. When its done you can add a little lime juice (1/4 cup) and some cilantro. After it has cooled blend it up in a blender or food processor - this is your sauce.

After you let the squash cool enough to handle split it in half, set aside the seeds (you can roast them if you later if you like) and dig all the squash flesh out of the skin and mash it in a bowl. You can add some mexican spices or cheese if you like, but this is what you put in the corn tortillas 1-2 Tbs. at a time. Put a little sauce in the bottom of 9x13 pan (or two 8x8s) and place the rolled tortillas in the pan. Cover with sauce and bake at 350 for 25 minutes. I'm going to try freezing 1/2 a batch for later since there's just the two of us. Enjoy!