Roasted Butternut Squash and Swiss Chard

Fall is here. The birch trees are yellow, the temperature is in the thirties at night, and the entire landscape is transitioning from summer's abundance to autumn's honesty — fewer hours, cooler air, the mountains showing more rock than green. I don't dread it the way I did last year. I respect it. Fall in Alaska is a negotiation: you give up the light, and in return, you get the colors, the clarity, the particular beauty of a place that's about to go under and knows it.

I've settled into a rhythm with the blog — two posts per month, each one anchored in a recipe and a story, each one reaching a readership that feels like a small room where people gather because the food is good and the company understands. I don't count the numbers obsessively. The numbers are secondary to the comments, which are the real reward — the Filipino-Americans sharing their mothers' variations, the healthcare workers sharing their coping meals, the readers who say "I made your recipe and it reminded me of home."

This week I made chicken tinola with a twist — I used moose instead of chicken. Moose tinola. It sounds wrong and tastes extraordinary: the gamey depth of moose meat in the clean, ginger-forward broth, the chayote softening, the fish sauce adding its background hum. Reynaldo would have loved it. He was the one who first put moose in Filipino recipes, and I'm continuing his tradition of asking, "What if this Alaskan ingredient met this Filipino technique?" The answer is almost always: something good. Something new. Something that couldn't exist anywhere else.

I wrote the post: "Moose Tinola: My Father's Ghost in the Pot." It's about cooking with game meat in Alaska, about the subsistence hunting that feeds rural communities, about the moose that wander through Anchorage like they own the place. But mostly it's about Reynaldo — about his willingness to experiment, to combine, to look at the unfamiliar and say, "What if?"

Lourdes read the post and called me. "Your father would have been proud of the writing," she said. She didn't say he would have been proud of the cooking. She said the writing. I think about this distinction a lot. Lourdes has always approved of the cooking — it's her recipes, her technique, her kitchen legacy. But the writing is mine. The writing is the thing I brought to the table that wasn't already there. Reynaldo would have been proud of the writing. Lourdes is proud of the cooking. Between them, I am seen.

The moose tinola was the centerpiece, but fall in Alaska has a way of demanding you fill the whole table — and the butternut squash on my counter had been waiting patiently all week, its skin the same gold as the birch trees outside. After writing about Reynaldo, about the way he looked at unfamiliar ingredients and asked “what if,” it felt right to honor that same spirit in a simpler dish: roasting what the season hands you, letting the chard go tender alongside it, and trusting that straightforward and honest is sometimes the most Alaskan thing you can do.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 medium butternut squash (about 2 lbs), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 large bunch Swiss chard, stems removed, leaves roughly chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds), for serving

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 425°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Season the squash. Toss the butternut squash cubes with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, smoked paprika, salt, and black pepper. Spread in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet, making sure pieces aren’t crowded.
Roast. Roast for 25–30 minutes, flipping once halfway through, until the squash is golden brown on the edges and fork-tender in the center.
Wilt the chard. About 5 minutes before the squash is done, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes (if using) and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the Swiss chard leaves and toss with tongs, cooking for 3–4 minutes until wilted and tender.
Deglaze and combine. Add the apple cider vinegar to the chard pan and stir to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove the roasted squash from the oven and gently fold it into the skillet with the chard, or arrange the chard on a platter and top with the squash.
Finish and serve. Scatter toasted pepitas over the top and serve warm as a side dish or a light main alongside crusty bread or rice.

Nutrition (per serving)

Roasted Butternut Squash and Swiss Chard — What Alaska Gives Back in Autumn