Savory Butternut Squash and Potato Tart with Bacon and Herb Cream Sauce

First things first: it’s been a while. Too long. Between cel­e­bra­tory fes­tiv­i­ties and an enor­mous project at work, I’ve been slammed. Unfortunately, that has resulted in less time for the full-on cook­ing and doc­u­ment­ing of said full-onness. I promise I’ll try to do bet­ter, but I make no promises. And now on to our irreg­u­larly sched­uled blog post.

Fall is offi­cially upon us here in Nashville. After more than two weeks of tor­ren­tial down­pours, autumn has exploded. Cooler days, crisp nights and all the amaz­ing fall pro­duce that goes along with it. To cel­e­brate, I came up with this tart com­bin­ing an awe­some but­ter­nut squash we received from the CSA with pota­toes, bacon, cheese and an herb cream sauce full of sweet-savory good­ness. It totally hit the spot and made me super excited to take advan­tage of the pump­kin, spaghetti squash, acorn squash and addi­tional but­ter­nut squash we received from the CSA today! Keep read­ing for the recipe and more pictures!

Savory Butternut Squash and Potato Tart with Bacon and Herb Cream Sauce

4 strips of bacon
1 shal­lot, chopped
2/3 cup half & half
1 tbsp. chopped fresh pur­ple basil
1/2 tsp. chopped fresh sage
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 medium but­ter­nut squash, peeled and seeded
2 medium pota­toes
1/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pep­per
2 store-bought 9-inch pie crusts, thawed

Preheat Oven to 375º F.

Cook bacon in a skil­let over medium heat until crispy (hooray new cast-iron! thanks mama and daddy smith!); remove to paper tow­els to drain and cool. Once cooled, crum­ble the bacon. Add shal­lots to pan and sauté in bacon grease for 3 minutes.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, com­bine half & half, shal­lots (drain the grease first), basil, sage, thyme and a pinch of salt & pep­per and sim­mer for 5 min­utes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Slice pota­toes and squash into rounds roughly 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. My fancy new man­do­line came in very handy here (Thanks mom & dad!).

Remove dough from pans and com­bine into a ball. Sprinkle flour over the work sur­face and roll out dough into a cir­cle 1/4 inch thick. Leaving a 2 inch bor­der, alter­nate pota­toes and squash arrang­ing into a ring. Fill the cen­ter of the ring with the remain­der of the pota­toes and squash.

Cover the pota­toes and squash with the bacon and cheese, then sprin­kle with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Fold the crust edges up over the fill­ing, mak­ing sure it seals all the way around. Remove thyme sprigs from cream and dis­card. Pour cream and herb mix­ture over cen­ter of torte and bake for 50 – 60 min­utes, until pota­toes in the cen­ter are fork ten­der. If crust starts to brown too much, cover with alu­minum foil. Let cool for 10 min­utes before slic­ing and serving.

To boost the fla­vor, sprin­kle with a lit­tle more fresh chopped pur­ple basil before eat­ing — it’s outstanding!

I’ve gotta say, I think this is one of the best things Megan and I have made in quite some time and it will cer­tainly be made again. Just look at that golden flaky deli­cious­ness! And many thanks to Lacey at Crema for the huge amount of pur­ple basil. This wouldn’t have been nearly as tasty with­out it!