Caramelized Butternut Squash

Rich and sweet. Butternut squash is cut into cubes, and mixed with butter, brown sugar, salt and pepper. A long roasting time (about an hour) leads to nicely carmelized squares of bright orange squash.

For flavor and appearance, this recipe deserves a 5.

Why "only" four? Butternut squash starts out sweet, and it doesn't really need all that butter and brown sugar to be excellent. I felt that the recipe took a really healthy ingredient, and made it less healthy.

On the other hand, if you have kids who are vegetable adverse, this recipe might be your ticket.

As a side note, other than the sugar, this was a locovore delight.

Quite delicious and very easy, this roasted squash doesn't seem to me to use such an extravagant amount of sugar and butter and salt--once I had peeled and seeded my squash I had two pounds of flesh. I used 2 tablespoons of sugar, 3 tablespoons of butter and less than a teaspoon of salt. Ironically, quite a bit of the sugar and butter remained in the pan, caramelized around the edges of the silpat (thank goodness I used it---this would have been a messy pan to clean otherwise) and so the squash was really pretty low in fat and sugar. This dish however needs something more -- I found it to be a bit bland--found myself thinking about grated orange rind, cinnamon or five spice powder or garam masala. I also suspect that the use of olive oil in combination with the butter would mean the dish could retain the butter flavor but lose a bit of the saturated fat. In all, a good base to start from, not unlike some of the other recipes in this book.