Baked Butternut Squash

I'm on a roll right now - a squashing roll. So let's do another squash dish. Today I have me some roasted butternut squash.

Before very recently - I didn't used to buy squash of any kind. They are kind of a mystery to me, lumpy, various shapes, and thick skinned. Guess I never had the drive to explore what wonders are inside. In my recent exploration of vegetarian/vegan recipes, I found out there are so many different squashes around and they all taste pretty different, and greatly nutritious.

Did you know? Butternut squash per serving is only 50 calories, and contains 260% of daily vitamin A, 40% vitamin C along with a bunch of other nutrition and lots of fiber. I certainly didn't know that.

Recipe:
- When you slice a squash in half, be very careful with your fingers, they are round and slippery. Don't cut yourself!
- Hollow the seeds out with a spoon. There's not typically a large cavity so you still get.. a lot of squash.

- Skin the thing. Ok yes I read so many other recipes that say: skin it! I have to be real here, it's one of the hardest things to skin. Who are we kidding it's rounded, rolls around a lot, thick skinned, oddly shaped, too large to hold in one hand - shall I continue with the challenges before we throw in the towel? And no don't use a potato peeling, not going to cut it! So far the best method to skin the thing is to cut the squash into 1 1/2 inch strips cross wise, and turn them side ways and use a regular kitchen knife. See photo on right. This way you don't cut your fingers off - need them for later.
- then sort of cube the squash, in a large bowl, 2 tsp of oil, 1/2 tsp of salt, 2 tsp of brown sugar, 1 tsp of cinnamon.
- 400 F bake for 25 min, turn and back another 15 min. These cubes should be soft, sugar glazed, sweet-potato like, totally yummers.

I paired my squash with a veggie/tofu stir fry. I wrote about this recipe before, see here https://www.eatwithjia.com/2020/02/saturday-lunch-snowpea-sprout-tofu-stir.html Except this time, I used spinach instead of snow pea sprout this time. I like the squash recipe with a green veggie dish: sweet and soft, pairs well with something fresh and crisp. Hope you will enjoy squashing!