Butternuttery Squash Goodness

Fall is upon us and I figured I should start experimenting with other things in terms of cooking. 

Whenever I go to the town market or even our Commissary, I notice they have Butternut Squash and Acorn Squash. In all honesty, I've NEVER cooked with either of those things and I was a lil intimidated considering they're both rock hard squashes. After doing a little bit of research, I figured I'd tackle some Butternut Squash and if that went well, I'll try an Acorn Squash next. 

I ventured onto www.allrecipes.com and searched for some kinda recipe that incorporated this particular squash.. and I wanted something that WASN'T a soup.I already have a good amount of soup recipes! Here's the lucky winner I decided to make:

Garlicky Baked Butternut Squash

  Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

 I actually ended up using 5 cloves of garlic, alot more Parmesan than the ingredients called for (my family likes thinks rather cheesy), Pampered Chefs Garlic & Parmesan seasoning, and I used olive oil that's infused with walnuts cause I really enjoy the "earthy" taste. 

Before you get started, make sure to pre-heat the oven to 400*!! 

 To mince the garlic, I used my Food Chopper... it made pretty quick work of the cloves..and, smelled amazing!

  Peeled the Butternut Squash with my Serrated Peeler....

Once the squash was all peeled, I sliced it open and scooped all the seeds out with my Large Scoop..

When you're all done scooping out the seeds, you then chop up the squash into 1 inch cubes (think in terms of bite size). If the cubes are too large, it could take longer to cook it all the way so it's not crunchy. I was honestly surprised as to how hard this freaking veggie was..but my knives managed to slice through it without too many problems. After you've measured out your parsley, salt, pepper, oil and chopped up the squash, you toss 'em all into a big bowl: 

Personally, I tossed in some Parmesan and shook about 2 tbsp of Pampered Chefs Garlic Parmesan seasoning (what harm could it do?).. from there, I dumped the squash mixture into my Rectangular Baker (Stoneware), covered it in aluminum foil and popped it into the oven for an hour. Once an hour rolled around, I just stuck some of the different pieces with a fork to check for tenderness (if its still hard on the inside, just bake a little longer)...luckily, the pieces were done cause Eric and John were griping about being hungry. 

After all was said and done, this was a VERY easy recipe to make...ESPECIALLY since it's the first time I've ever made this dish and used a squash. Eric was actually rather skeptical about it since he's a meat and potatoes kinda guy.. so to have a dish that's simply all veggie wasn't "ok" with him, lol. He and John ended up devouring the entire baker worth of squash!!

So, this is definitely going on my recipe book :) My next challenge will be Stuffed Acorn Squash! 

Enjoy!