Sunday, December 27, 2009

Butterscotch or Brown Sugar?

I got a new cookbook for Christmas and as I was looking through it I saw a recipe for carrots that made me change something on our Christmas Dinner menu. I had some butternut squash and still was kinda soft on how I was going to prepare them.

I've seen recipes for brown sugar carrots before....but butterscotch/nut squash seemed tasty with a fun name.

Roasted Butterscotch-Nut Squash

1 butternut squash, peeled, cored and chopped into chunks (our grocery has boxes of these already done for you!)
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/4 cup brown sugar (I used Splenda brown sugar)
1/2 tsp. salt
freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees or use the broiler if you wish.
Line baking sheet with non-stick foil or spray with non-stick spray. Place squash on baking sheet. Stir in brown sugar and salt into melted butter. Pour over squash and use a rubber scraper to help move the squash to coat. Don't worry too much for the sugar will melt and coat better as you go along.

Cook in oven for about 20-30 minutes (depending on the heat level you used). Keep a watchful eye on your squash and moving them around every so often with rubber scraper. When the sugar has thickened and the squash is soft enough or the sugar has encrusted enough on your squash (you decide how you want it)

Keep in mind you need a high heat to caramelize the sugar and achieve some sugar crunchiness. If you also, over cook it or move it around too much....you may end up with butternut mush. Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper before serving.


This was absolutely DELISH with our Christmas ham dinner. The saltiness of the ham and the sweet cubes of squash....K-man thought these were sweet potatoes! I like the idea of having squash instead of sweet potatoes to cut down on the carbs. Hmmmm, this would be interesting to mix the squash as well as some sweet potatoes and roast them together one night....hmmmmm

Give this a try, it will not disappoint!

Enjoy!

1 comment:

Cate O'Malley said...

Wouldn't have through to pair squash with butterscotch, but why the heck not? :)