1. I upped the heat to 400 degrees. More than anything else, this was my own mis-remembering of temperature.
2. I baked for 40 minutes (at that temp I likely could have baked for 35 even…).
3. For the first 30 minutes, I kept tin foil over the baking dish. In heeding your comments about chicken not drying out, it seemed appropriate to create a sort of steam-like environment.

Result: chicken was not overcooked and dry (though it was not as juicy as it tends to be when I do a quick-grill in my countertop grille). The downside is that my dinner didn’t wind up with as much of a nice brown, baked glow to it, but I think that some adjustments should be made to this. My learnings:

1. Next time I will try the 375 degrees instead of 400. My oven gets really hot really easily, so I think even with keeping the intended temperature I can still cook this in like 35-ish minutes.
2. I will lessen the amount of chicken broth and supplement the rest with water. It will thin the broth out enough to provide better evaporation for steam once I remove the tin foil while still keeping that nice brothy flavor. I might even reduce the amount of overall liquid just a smidge, because I found more liquid in my pan than I tend to like.
3. At 20 minutes I will remove the tin foil so that I leave enough time for evaporation.

In general, this was so tasty. I love the smell of cumin (it’s a food orgasm sort of smell for me), but I don’t cook with it often. I get a bit skeptical, because I don’t have much experience with cooking w/ it. But you’re right–there is some strange magic in the squash-apple-cumin mixture. So good!!! And I have a very lovely tupperware of this sitting in my fridge at work for today’s lunch. Yummy!!!

I wonder what it would taste like to supplement caraway seeds instead of cumin. And maybe a low fat feta or goat cheese.

Tonight when I make it home from my day I am trying the chocolate ricotta dessert recipe from Gourmet Dessert. I flipped through all of those recipes yesterday evening wondering if I can just cut all of the splenda/agave syrup/etc. amounts in the recipes that use protein powder, as the Jay Robb stuff is VERY sweet as it is. Hmm.

:)
stephanopoulos

PS–I wonder if you were to cover most of the casserole in tin foil, to create a sort of steam-like environment, and take foil off when you put on the cheese for melting and browning. Maybe that would work.

OR if you, instead of broiling, if you baked at 425 degrees. Or added the smallest amount of chicken broth to add moisture and facilitate steaming?

I might modify it by adding some roasted garlic (the sweetness of it could go v. well with the apple), and I might use a goat cheese instead of havarti, but that looks really good and easy.

And I’m with you–don’t fear the olive oil. I think if I were afraid of olive oil my membership to the Short Greek Mama’s Club would have to be revoked.