Tuesday, September 4, 2012

No Going Back

You know what they say, once you go roasted, you'll never go back to boiled. 

Right, no one says that.  THat's a really stupid sentence.

Unless you're talking about butternut squash.


Mine grew really small this year and I was about to throw them away.  Even though I grew the cutest mini pumpkins one  year, I am not a centerpiece making kind of person, so these wouldn't be very useful for decoration in my house.  They were so small that peeling them wouldn't be worth it.

My sister a-ster suggested that I roast them.  She says that a lot.  "Why don't you just roast them?"  Pretty soon, I'll be roasting cookies. 

She said to cut them in half, scoop out the seeds, place them face side up on a tray and roast them at 375 for close to an hour.  No oil, no water, no foil over them.  Well, she didn't say those 3 things, but that's what I did and it worked.


I will never cut, peel and boil again.  These things just about fell out of the skins themselves once they were cooked.  And they were nice and sweet.  The little ones looked like they were more green and I worried that they weren't really fully developed but they tasted just as good as the bright orange one.  No bitterness.


I really didn't even have to mash them much once I took the skins off because they were pretty mushy.

We always have butternut squash for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but they are awful to cut and peel.  Many a Christmas morning, my mother has played fast and loose with a knife, trying to get enough leverage to cut them then cut and peel them.  This was something my grandmother used to help her with but she didn't make it look any easier.   Sometimes my father helps but that just makes people say "remember the time grandpa took the squash down cellar and cut it with the saw?"

I don't know what it's like in your house when you're trying to work with butternut squash, but it's never been something that I aspired to do because everyone's always risking losing a finger.

So, I rarely make squash myself.

Until now.

Oh and I roasted a few of these babies too since I had the oven on anyway.  They're on their way to beet salad right now.


Of course I didn't mix them together.  I could never hide beets in something orange. 

Unless they were golden beets....

I better link up here and go to school before I think up how to introduce beets.

2 comments:

  1. It's the easiest thing since crockpot chicken, hehe. But seriously. Butternut squash, beets, and sweet potatoes roasted like this (no extras - just the way nature made them) was baby food minus the pureeing/food mill nightmares I heard about. I scooped it straight out of the skin with a baby spoon directly into baby's mouth :)
    Now I just roast for slightly less time and I'm able to slice them for baby finger food/mama salads.
    And oh my lord how caramely they get when roasted. No sugar needed.

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  2. I learned this trick at a farmers' market last autumn. Will never peel and boil butternut again. You can experiment with spicing them also, cloves, mace, curry powder.

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