Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash Gratin

Pulling meals together from what's in the fridge isn't my speciality. It shouldn't be difficult, but somehow I always struggle and sadly end up throwing away far more food than we should. I'm making a real effort at the moment to change that and reduce what goes into the council compost bin and I'm delighted to say that this last week I've succeeded and come up with a great new simple meal as a result.

Based on the Waitrose Baked Pumpkin Gratin recipe that I picked up on one of their cards a while back I managed to concoct a delicious sweet potato and butternut squash gratin based on what I could find in the fridge. 

I love the bags that Waitrose do of butternut squash and sweet potato cubes. When Little Miss C was weaning they were ideal for making up a quick batch of puree for her without all the hassle of having to cut up butternut squash – which I strangely always find troublesome. They've been on special offer recently – hence a surplus in my fridge.

Ingredients

• Bag of butternut squash and sweet potato
• Some tomatoes
• Garlic cloves
• Vegetable stock (enough to cover the amount of veg you have)
• Single cream
• Breadcrumbs
• Gruyere cheese

Method

Place all the vegetables in a roasting dish. Pour over the vegetable stock and then place in the oven at 200 degrees for about 45 minutes. At this stage stir though and then add some single cream – enough to cover all the veg, but not to make it too liquid. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the top and then grate the cheese over the breadcrumbs. Return to the oven for approximately 15 minutes; until the top is crispy. 

You can serve this either as a vegetarian main course with salad on the side, as an accompaniment to meat, or with some nice bread to make it a comfort food supper. It's a great recipe for just using up what you find in the fridge or your vegetable rack and simple to do too.

In this case the sweet potato gave the dish some bulk, whilst the nutty nature of the Gruyere added an extra taste dimension. The whole thing has also made me much more confident of my abilities to cobble something together from what I can find in the kitchen and hopefully in the process has helped to reduce the amount of food we waste.