Take your bites to new heights with fall fancy toast

Capital One wants to help you “Elevate the Everyday” so you can do more of what you enjoy doing—even when you’re spending more time at home. We’re bringing you personal hacks, tips and tricks for all the things you love doing—all brought to you by professional tastemakers and trendsetters. 

Watch chef Carrie Baird make a fall-forward “fancy toast” with fresh, seasonal ingredients, including squash two ways. 

Baird is a James Beard Award–nominee who recently opened Rose’s Classic Americana in Denver, which features elevated takes on burgers, sandwiches, salads and toasts. 

For Capital One’s Elevate the Everyday series, Baird taps into her passion for local ingredients and takes inspiration from the time of year to create one of her signature fancy toasts. This delicious seasonal recipe features a homemade butternut squash agrodolce–a traditional Italian sauce that is both sweet and tart.

Baird then adds blue cheese and stacks on roasted acorn squash and frisée with lemon vinaigrette before topping it all off with fresh pomegranate seeds. It’s one of her all-time favorites, and Baird says, “It’s not complicated—it’s elevated.”

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced
• 1.5 cups sherry vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 1.5 cups sugar
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 2 tablespoons kosher salt + salt for the vinaigrette and finish
• 2 lemons
• Olive oil
• 1 acorn squash, peeled and cut into 1.5-inch rounds 
• 1 round loaf of sourdough bread
• Frisée (or sub arugula)
• Blue cheese crumbles to taste 
• 1 pomegranate (or sub pine nuts)

1. Make the agrodolce:
   • Place the diced butternut squash in a pot and add vinegar, water and sugar.
   • Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
   • Let simmer for 30–40 minutes until squash is fork-tender and liquids have reduced to a thin syrup.
   • Add pecans, dried cranberries, the juice from one lemon and two tablespoons of kosher salt.
   • Using a potato masher, whisk or fork, mix until a chunky jam texture is achieved. Let cool, and taste for seasoning.
2. Sprinkle the acorn squash with salt and olive oil, and roast at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes.
3. Slice the sourdough in half and cut two big slices from the middle of one of the halves.
4. Toast the bread in a pan with oil on the stove, flipping once to toast both sides.
5. Cut frisée into fork-size pieces and place in a bowl.
6. Top the frisée with the zest of one lemon, the juice from that lemon, a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. 
7. Seed the pomegranate by breaking it into quarters and putting them in a bowl of water. The seeds will sink. Everything else will float. 
8. Assemble on a plate: 
   • Cover toast with lots of agrodolce.
   • Top with blue cheese crumbles.
   • Place a squash circle on top.
   • Layer on some frisée. 
   • Top with another squash circle.
   • Garnish with pomegranate seeds.
   • Finish with salt.