Thrifty Butternut | Recipe

Hellllo,

Normally when I go food shopping I'm really good! I am an obsessive list writer so writing a shopping list and sticking it suits me down to the bone! However, about a week ago I went to Asda and was ambushed by a butternut squash. I'm not sure what came over me, I had never cooked one before, I didn't know what to do with it and it sat sadly in my cupboard for a week. (This is literally as exciting as my life gets...sorry)

Anyway, today I decided enough was enough and I cooked the damn thing! I roasted half of it and made the other half in to curry and they're both absolutely delicious and considering the squash only cost me 95p it's a pretty cheap week's worth of dinners.

Here's my recipe for roast butternut squash:

First thing first, chop the bloody thing in half! This was really difficult for someone with no upper body strength (e.g me) so use a big knife! Scoop out all the seeds and keep them

Chop your squash into decent sized chunks and then lay them in a dish. Try to only lay them in one layer so that they all cook the same.

In a little bowl mix together some chilli flakes, cinnamon, mixed herbs, salt and pepper. If you've got a pestle and mortar now's the time to use it. I didn't have one so I used the back of a big spoon to smash them a little bit

Add some olive oil to form a herby paste. I also added a squeeze or tomato puree and some garlic puree (if you can't get hold of puree then it might be nice to put some whole garlic cloves in so that they roast with the butternut squash)

Smear this paste all over your squash making sure every chunk has some on it. Also, sprinkle some of the seeds you scooped out earlier over the top. 

Wrap the squash tightly in tin foil and bake at 180 until the skin becomes soft (this took about 40 minutes for me because my oven is rubbish but it could take as little as 20 mins). Once it's soft take the tin foil off and bake for another 10 mins.

There you go then! It's a little bit spicey so if you're not a fan of the heat you might want to use less chilli. I'm going to have mine for dinner tonight with some noodles and a bit of soy sauce! I also made a curry out of the squash but I haven't tried it yet. If it's nice I'll stick the recipe up here

Let me know if you make this yourself...let me know if you like it!