Butternut Squash Bake #1

Posted by Ethne~

There’s nothing like fall to get me in squash mode.  One time I made AWESOME butternut squash soup but of course I didn’t write down the recipe and haven’t been able to recreate it since.  Drat!  It was along the lines of Campbell’s butternut squash soup that comes in the paperboard container.

Nonetheless, when we went to Bob’s Produce Ranch on Saturday to buy pumpkins for each of the 4 of us, I wanted a squash to cook, too.  I bought a nice-looking butternut squash.

I don’t do anything complicated to bake my squash.  There are a zillion different ways, but I took the sticker off, washed it off, and put it in the oven on a baking sheet, whole.  350º.  I set the timer for 30 minutes and then when that buzzed, I stuck a knife in the thickest part – the neck – and if it was super tender, it was done.  I needed to bake mine for about 20-30 more minutes.

In case you don’t know the anatomy of a butternut squash, the seed cavity is in the bulbous bottom part, on the opposite end of the stem.

**You can bake squash seeds the same as pumpkin seeds.  They are a little smaller, but the prep and taste are the same – delicious.  If that’s the case, when you pick your squash apart, set the seeds aside.**

I left the squash out on the countertop to cool until it was ok to touch with my hands.  I just cut it open and scooped out the flesh.  I knew I would be saving and cooking with it on Sunday, so I didn’t freeze it.  Fridge was fine.

What have I decided to do with it??  Well, I was in the mood for risotto and as it turns out, I had some on hand.  Convenient!  I made it just the same as I did here, except instead of peas, I added cubes of the cooked butternut squash.  The whole fam loved it.  And it was so lovely too.

Slowly simmering

KD cooperatively eating green beans and squash risotto

Beau-te-ful

What am I going to make with my pumpkins?  For now, they will be decorations on the deck.  We may carve a couple of them for Halloween.  I personally love when Shaun carves Jack Skellington out of mine.  And I will reserve one pumpkin for baking.  Making a pumpkin pie for the holidays out of my own pumpkin right up my alley. 

Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King

Scariest of all: we begin our holiday celebrations in less than a month!  Shaun and I have family nearby, so we always have a place to be for the actual holidays, and then some.  But when I was growing up in ND, I had no family around at all.  We had some amazing friends in Williston that became our family, but there were plenty of holidays when I was a kid where it was just Thrifty Nana, Dad, Whit and me.  It was really quite special, looking back.  Anyway, Shaun and I decided that there would be one designated day where we cook a full-up holiday meal, just for the four of us.  Our own family holiday meal – it’s shaping up to be the 2^nd weekend of November again this year.  What??  It was just 80 degrees out last week!