New Love for Butternut Squash

Growing up, I HATED butternut squash. There wasn't enough cinnamon (or mashed potatoes for that matter) in the world to get me to eat mine. It was torture for my mother trying to me to "finish my vegetables" when squash was involved.

I haven't had butternut in years, but I was drawn to Cara's fries-made-from-sqaush. Today, I bought a butternut squash for the first time ever. I never saw my mom prepare it, so I didn't even know what it looked like inside (and I was, for some reason, surprised!). Well, as Cara suggests, I parboiled first. Then I dabbed with evoo and sprinkled with some homemade Essence. (Looking at Cara's blog, I now realized I didn't put them in the ice bath after parboiling.... no worries, they were no worse for wear). I fired up non-other than my toaster oven (just lazy, really) and put them at about 375 degrees F for maybe 20 minutes.

These are SERIOUSLY good. I don't know if it's just because essence may quite effectively void all other flavors, but it did NOT taste like my mother's butternut squash. There is a new squash lover out there, all thanks to Cara.