All comfort food has one essential requirement: it must transport us to a place where we feel safe and warm and reminds us of home. Today, to finish the extra butternut squash that we didn’t use for Thanksgiving, we decided to test our Curried Butternut Squash with Lentils recipe.

It can be eaten as a hearty soup. Craving a taste of home, May chose to ladle it over a simple Basmati rice and serve it with grilled Masala Tilapia, a traditional meal from warm, beautiful, seaside Kerala, where May grew up... Either way, just the perfect thing for a snowy winter’s day like today.

This recipe is a much healthier comfort food alternative to mac and cheese or mashed potatoes with gravy. The lentils and butternut squash are full of fiber, amino acids, vitamins and antioxidants. This curry recipe is not one of those burn-your-tongue-off curries that people think of as Indian food, but it is spicy in a very tender and flavorful way that explodes in your mouth and warms you up. According to May, this is because the spices are harmoniously blended. All I know is that I loved it at first taste. You will too. Yummmmm!

On the theory that a picture is worth a thousand words...here are some pictures that will illustrate critical steps in the recipe.