My New Favorite Vegetable

They’re everywhere this time of year.

Squash.

They come in a seemingly-endless assortment of shapes, sizes, and colors.

If you’re like me you may have found one or two you like and you’ve stuck with those tried-and-true favorites over the years.

For me it’s been butternut squash: cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, bake it cut side down with just a titch of water in the pan, and when it’s done scoop the squash out of the shell and into a bowl and mash with a fork. Some folks like to add butter but we enjoy it au natural.

I found another variety of squash that I’m adding to my repertoire this year. Delicata squash. I had been hearing so much about how delicious this variety was and I had to try it. The first time I baked it in the oven the same way I bake butternut squash. It was good but I expected it to be better after reading so much about how good it was supposed to be.

Then I was listening to Food for Thought on NPR recently and I heard more raving about delicata squash. They recommended a different way of cooking it: slice in half, remove the seeds, slice, toss with olive oil and salt & pepper and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. I decided to be brave and I tried the recipe when we had company.

Oh my. It was divine.

Since then I’ve lost count of how many of these babies I’ve bought and roasted; I never use pepper and use very little salt; the slices are sweet tasting, almost like a natural form of candy. Even if you’re not a fan of squash I bet you would enjoy the delicata slices.

Have you tried delicata squash? If so, how do you prepare it? If not, what are you waiting for?!