One of the tastiest and easiest ways to get a quick side of veggies prepared is to roast them, as I’ve written about before. This is especially true for vegetables that have a nice, sweet flavor of their own, like the ubiquitous butternut squash, which has lately been bandied about in food magazines and TV shows as the perfect winter vegetable. Roasted butternut squash, which you can thrown in to the oven without much of a fuss as you go about your other baking, added a perfectly light side of vegetables to my Thursday dinner; I can also see it being a good complement to heavier meat dishes like tandoori chicken or a roast loin of pork. Plus, this is a veggie that is chockful of vitamins and minerals that will help you brave the chill.

The butternut squash has a subtle flavor reminiscent of pumpkin (and from what I read, it treated interchangeably with a pumpkin Down Under), which gets concentrated through a nice long roast in the oven. To intensify the sweetness and to get a nice caramelized exterior, I tossed the cut cubes with some olive oil (side-stepping the melted butter a lot of the recipes called for) and brown sugar – this resulted in a lovely golden brown char on a few pieces and infused the vegetables with a gentle, warm sweetness.

Don’t be intimidated by this bulbous vegetable with tough skin; with a sharp knife and a sturdy cutting board, it is quite easy to cube into pieces. A strong vegetable peeler is needed to remove the tough skin (I cut the squash into flat quarters first, scoop out the insides, peel the skin and then cube them); however, the long roasting time ensures that you can leave the skin on if you like – I couldn’t tell the difference between pieces I left the skin on and the ones I removed it for after the roasting was done. Or, you could just bypass all this and pick up a bag of pre-cut cubes of the squash that are increasingly available at a wide range of grocers!

THE RECIPE:

YOU’LL NEED:

• 1 butternut squash, cubed into 1-inch pieces
• 2 tbslp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbslp brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper (optional, if you want some heat)

THE RECIPE:

• Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F
• Toss squash cubes with salt, olive oil and brown sugar (and pepper if using), ensuring the pieces are evening coated with all ingredients
• Use a large-enough baking dish to ensure all pieces are spread in one layer; line with foil and put in the squash mixture.
• Bake for 40 mins and serve warm.

• Tags: quickie, vegetables
• Posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
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