Cinnamon-Roasted Butternut Squash with Dried Cranberries

Nearly every holiday, I show up with some variation on orzo salad. At Easter, there are peas, asparagus, and goat cheese, at Christmas, I’ll arrive with a version containing sundried tomatoes, walnuts, and feta, and, of course, you just know I’m showing up at your Labor Day party with a chopped up Caprese salad dumped into the orzo. Predictable, predictable, predictable.

Given this now-confessed predictability, it should not surprise you that this recipe started its life as the super-exciting, totally unexpected idea for my brand spankin’ new Thanksgiving orzo salad. Because I’m pretty sure that my family is going to be stoked when I show up with yet another orzo dish. And, as I am so reliant upon orzo, of course there is orzo in our pantry. There is never not orzo in our pantry.

Only when it came time to make the orzo, it seemed that the pantry moths whose existence I was certain I had obliterated during the Great Pantry Moth Extermination of 2013, held just a month ago, and during which all improperly stored grain products were disposed of – including 40 pounds of flour (noooooooo!), random containers of rice, farro, and the like, and my beloved Lazzaroni amaretti cookies (I should have sealed them better. I should have stored them in the fridge. I should have protected them. I failed, and now I pay the price.) – well, it turns out, I had not destroyed all of the moths.

Have you ever compared pantry moth larvae to orzo? (You may be wondering how you got to the point where you are still reading this post, discussing, as it does, larvae, and I assure you, I have thought this through. Last week, I completely revised a post about pig flatulence – well, really it was about marinated pork tenderloin, so I went back to that – in order to entice you into possibly making said dish. I am at least borderline aware of the limits of grossness as it applies to discussing food. Borderline aware.)

So, if you haven’t compared moth larva, which is only a nice way of saying a worm – or perhaps that’s the other way around – worm is nicer than larvae, I think – if you haven’t done the comparison, they are strikingly similar. Thankfully, moth larvae move when startled, which orzo (orzi? Plural?) do not do. You can see where we’re going now, right?

With no moth larvae-free orzo in the house, improvisation kicked in. And, it turns out, improvisation worked well for this cinnamon-y squash dish. Thanks for that, pantry moth mo-fos.

If you do have first-quality, unsullied orzo in the house, you could still make an orzo salad of this – you know what to do, just cook the whole one-pound box and stir it together with this roasted squash combo. Maybe add a little more olive oil to the finished dish if you think it needs it.

With cinnamon and turbinado sugar coating the squash, it’s a wee bit sweet, however, if you aren’t as big a fan of sweet as am I, balance the flavors by serving it alongside wild rice (which, smartly – for a change – had been stored in the refrigerator. Thank goodness. The resemblance between rice and worms is even closer.).

Together, wild rice and the squash is a great match for turkey (hello, Thanksgiving!), chicken, or pork, or, as I’ve been using the leftovers, as a vegan lunch option. Oh look. We ended on a worm-free up note. How nice.

because, much like discussing worms in a recipe post, it’s totally normal to sit outside on a 36-degree day and eat squash in front of a bunch of pumpkins. Totally normal.