Where Have You Been All My Life Butternut?

Butternut would be such a cute nickname!  But honestly.  Where has that squash been all my life?

Popping around pinterest and walking around the neighborhood I have seen butternut recipes and butternut squash all over the place.  And I thought to myself, "Self, try a little experiment, would ya?"  See, this week is healthy week.  Couldn't loose my required weight eating cinnamon rolls, peach cobbler and apple crisp so I am going to have to go about it another way.  Eating way too many fruits and vegetables.  I was on the hunt for some new recipes.

My mind was a little skeptical when Handsome Husband came home with a squash that would before have found a place on my doorstep as a halloween gord with the pumpkins.  But I had my recipes and I was bound and determined to learn what to do with this thing.  And with three different recipes calling for 3-4 cups each I was pretty sure I could finish that sucker up.  Whether it actually got eaten or not, that would be another party of the story.

I even looked up on line how to cut and prepare it for cooking titled, "Peel and Cut with Confidence".  Intriguing name for a book for surgeons.  Step 4 was to scoop out the seeds and membranes.  Membranes!  Good thing I was cooking this up into a stew, otherwise it may come and get me in the night with a handsaw!

Following the directions directly is always my idealistic way of following a recipe but there's always something in the way.  Like the fact that I thought I had more paprika left than I actually do or that I had ground coriander at all.  So my recipe got varied a little.  But it was so yummy!  My kitchen smelled like an expensive thai restaurant for the rest of the evening.

The most impressive part though was how the butternut squash tasted.  Amazing!  Buttery and nutty.  No joke.  It's like whoever named it had tasted it first.

We've got a winner on our hands!  And a winner of a nickname, though we'll have to wait for a girl since Butternut provokes thoughts of soft yellow and toasted almonds.  Any boy of mine needs something with a little more oomph.  You know, like Orson Porson.  To match our Alaska Paska.  We're still brainstorming, obviously.  Orson Porson is not very threatening.  At all.  Really.