I went in having absolutely no expectations for this dish other than seeing it as an opportunity to use a lot of vegetables that came in my weekly Hungry Harvest shipment. I can find butternut squash a bit hit or miss and considering how many chicken and rice dishes I’d been making recently, I expected this to be more of the same. Plus this was my first dish from the Caribbean and having never traveled there, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was SO pleasantly surprised by this dish and it definitely got all the thumbs up in our house. And the leftovers, of which there were plenty, got better every day the dish sat in this unique combination of flavors.

I made a few tweaks to the recipe. I should preface the following with this-while I mainly followed the recipe listed below, I also consulted a few other recipes for guidance, though they were all mostly similar. First, I used butternut squash as opposed to pumpkin. I didn’t make my own coconut milk because, well, I’m not crazy. And lastly I believe I used a little less brown sugar than what it called for (but not by much). I did make the “green seasoning” listed following the recipe on the same website where I found the recipe. That is here: https://www.homemadezagat.com/2016/04/trinidad-chicken-pelau.html

Overall Level of Effort: 3

Skill Level: Intermediate

Would Make It Again? Yes

Additional Notes: I placed this as an overall level of effort and skill level a bit higher than usual, namely because I did try to “burn” the sugar a bit and I made the green seasoning, which took a bit more time and focus in an otherwise relatively simple recipe. And while I plan to keep track of my all time favorites for this project, I can say with confidence that this one will definitely be up there.