Qunioa and Roasted Butternut Stuffing --gluten free

We eat chicken a lot in our home--it is affordable, it is lower in calories than other meats and it is very versatile. We also are a stuffing kinda household but now with the recent emergence of Celiac disease in the family I am looking for gluten free answers to all of our life dilemmas. Well, OK only the food dilemmas because no matter how hard you try, gluten free cookie dough will not find missing socks.

Recently I was staring at a raw chicken, some raw quinoa and a freshly picked butter nut squash and thinking--I will mash you all together in harmony! So I did and it was a big hit (figuratively of course).

Quinoa Stuffing w/ Roasted Squash
2 cups cooked quinoa, cooled
1 large butter nut squash peeled and chunked
1 fresh onion
1 bunch of fresh sage chopped finely.
1 tb. Olive Oil
1 large clove fresh garlic minced


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash and prepare bird for stuffing. In a bowl add all the ingredients together aside from the quinoa and mix well. Add to a baking pan, cover and roast for about 20-25 minutes, you want to just stick a fork into the squash but not have it fall apart under pressure(it has a job to do and now is not the time to crumble!)

Remove from oven and place in a cool dish and set in the fridge to chill out.

When the vegetables have cooled enough to handle mix the quinoa in and blend well. Return to the ice box to let the flavors get to know one another, hope for marriage here! This will only take about 30 minutes--during all this cool down time you can bake some potatoes in the already heated oven to save for double stuffed taters later in the week.

Stuff the bird with the cooled stuffing and bake until the bird is done. The time will vary depending on the size of the bird. This stuffing was so delicious, I loved the outside of the stuffing that had browned in the oven by my husband preferred the softer stuffing from inside the bird. I prefer this now over bread stuffing, the texture is more rewarding and the aroma and taste far fresher than stale bread!

Other good ideas:
--bake stuffing in a baking pan and use to serve with a meal if you prefer out of the bird stuffing
--stuff peppers or even squash with this stuffing
--add dried cranberries and walnuts for a more seasonal stuffing