Packing up Hallowe’en or…baked Kabocha squash with brown sugar and balsamic vinegar

Packing up Hallowe’en or…baked Kabocha squash with brown sugar and balsamic vinegar

As usual, I left getting the Halloween pumpkin to the last minute. I blame my kids. They weren’t keen to carve pumpkins this year…being 14 and 16 will do that to you. In any event, we happen to live on a street that gets loads of kids at Halloween so what’s a mom to do? Buy the last “clean” pumpkin in the display at Safeway, that’s what. However, in years gone by I have been known to go a bit overboard on Halloween so while looking for that last pumpkin I happened to spot a Kabocha and a Red Kuri Squash. Eureka! I’ll make alien pumpkins, I thought to myself. The fact they happened to be organic and outrageously expensive did not deter me (it probably should have). By the time I got home I was beyond it and ended up sticking a leftover Hallowe’en mask on the pumpkin and drawing eyeballs and a scary mouth. As the kids pointed out…”Kids only care if you have good candy Mom,” complete with eyeroll and a careful look at what I had on hand in that regard (yes it’s gone).

Anyway, it’s a week later and I needed to do something with the bloody squash. The Red Kuri is going into a pie at work tomorrow…Friday is “Pieday” at Skunkworks Creative Group – you can see past results on our Facebook page. My colleague Jeremy is the pie aficionado but I sometimes chip in (the boy makes one hell of a mess so I usually offer to do the chopping). I had already found an interesting pie recipe calling for baked Red Kuri Squash. I LOVE sweet potato pie and it’s along those lines so I will be doing that. This left the Kabocha…ah yes.  Luckily for me others have trod this path before so I’m doing baked Kabocha with brown sugar and balsamic vinegar.

In short it’s dead simple. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cut the squash in quarters and remove the seeds. Whisk together 1 Tbsp brown sugar, 2 Tbsp balsamic, 1 Tbsp olive oil and a pinch of salt. Pour 1 Tbsp into each quarter and make sure all the cut edges are coated. Place on a foil lined cookie sheet, cover with more foil and bake for an hour or until soft (I ended up having to bake mine for 2).  I suppose using maple syrup in place of the brown sugar might also have been nice but I only thought of it just now so too bad.



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