"Clean Out the Fridge" Broccoli Squash Bake

If you're a regular reader, you know that I absolutely hate wasting food.  I'm often creating dishes just to utilize ingredients before they pass their expiration date.  Since Bret and I were leaving for Maine soon, I wanted to clean out the fridge before we left.  In my produce bin, I had two small heads of broccoli and one medium sized summer squash and I wanted to find a way to utilize both those ingredients for dinner on Thursday night.  I did a little research online and found this great recipe on All Recipes for a Broccoli Squash Bake.

To start, I washed and sliced up the broccoli.

I soon realized that this was way more than the recipe called for so I decided to double the recipe.  I first sauteed the broccoli in a pan with six tablespoons of butter for about three minutes.  It was a lot of butter but I think it was needed to nicely coat all of the vegetables.  After the first three minutes, I added the sliced and halved summer squash.  I gave the vegetables a quick stir now and again while I also got to work on my cheese sauce.

I put Bret to task to finely dice up a half a pound of Swiss cheese that I had picked up from Whole Foods on the way home from the gym.  I wasn't sure how many cups were in a pound so I estimated at half a pound and luckily I had enough for our doubled recipe. While Bret got to work on the cheese, I combined the rest of the cheese sauce ingredients and also added a bit of fresh-cracked pepper to the sauce.  I wasn't reading the ingredients closely and I put in the Parmesan cheese in the sauce.  Whoops!  Bret added the Swiss cheese to the sauce and we gave it a good mix.

After cooking six minutes (total) in the skillet, I transferred the vegetables to a round casserole dish that I had given a quick spray of cooking spray.

Bret then did the honors of pouring the liquid into the casserole dish so that I could get an action shot!  Once the liquid was in the casserole dish, we made sure that it was spread evenly throughout.

Even though there was already Parmesan cheese in the sauce, I gave the top of the dish a quick sprinkle of more Parmesan cheese so that I could get that nice brown crust on it.  I put the dish in the oven for twenty minutes and when it was done, I broiled it for another five minutes to get that nice golden brown crust on it.

The broccoli squash bake came out so delicious with the golden brown crust and the gooey cheesiness mixed with the vegetables.  Bret and I both took huge servings and were so full when we finished dinner.

I don't usually make a lot of casserole dishes since I am usually cooking for just the two of us.  But I'd like to know, what are your favorite casserole dishes?