Mission 3: Butternut Squash

Mission 3 of Operation "Let's Eat Some New Vegetables" had us eating butternut squash. Normally I'm not much of a squash fan, but I'd heard such good things about butternut squash that I decided to give it a go. This recipe was simple. I just cut the squash in half (which wasn't nearly as difficult to do as it is with spaghetti squash), then roasted it cut-side up at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes (until fork tender). I'm not sure if it matters whether you roast it cut-side up or down, but thought it was worth mentioning. I scooped out the squash and mixed it with a bit of brown sugar. It's that simple. And really, it tasted pretty close to mashed sweet potatoes. The texture was a little bit different (read: stringier), but otherwise it would have been difficult to distinguish the two.

Technically this was mission 4 or 5, but I don't have photographic evidence of the other vegetables we tried at my boyfriend's parents' house. We had fried yellow squash (which is really sautéed, not so much fried) and turnip greens. We both liked the homegrown squash, which was much softer and melt-in-your-mouth-y than I expected it to be, but only I liked the turnip greens. This is why you won't see much in the way of greens as part of Operation "Let's Eat Some New Vegetables." My boyfriend finds them bitter and just doesn't like them. Spinach was a stretch for him. He liked it at first, but said he started to find the leftovers bitter. I don't taste any bitterness in spinach, but to each his own.