Squash with wild rice recipe, PhD news

My dissertation results and a simple dish I made with butternut squash from my Grow Dome.

PhD in Integrative and Functional Nutrition and my Dissertation Findings

I completed my oral defense of my dissertation last week. So, while I am still making some grammatical edits to the paper, I now officially have my PhD!

I conducted my study to examine the differences in intestinal permeability in people with and without asthma to explore the gut-lung relationship. Even though more people in the group with asthma had “leaky gut” compared to the comparison group, there were no statistical differences, possibly due to the small sample size of under 30 participants in each group.

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Butternut Squash with Wild Rice

I grew squash in my grow dome this summer.

I cut it all up and put it in the freezer in bags.

Saturday, I took about 3 cups of squash and sauteed it in a skillet with duck fat and minced garlic for about 5 minutes. I then added one cup of wild rice and more duck fat. After stirring it to coat the rice, I added 1 cup of broth. I let that reduce, then added another cup and some herbs (I used herbs de Provence). I added a bit more broth until the rice softened.

This was very flavorful, and adding some black beans would make this a nice filling meal for the fall months.

It is a very versatile and simple recipe. You can replace duck fat with butter, coconut, avocado, or olive oil. You can use it as a side dish or add beans for a vegetarian meal. Try different rice, such as black or red rice. These kinds of rice and wild rice are more nutritious than white rice.