Other than that
I’m cool
And good
And ready to live
Learn, and love
And I love Butternut squash
My friend Alysha says of it:
‘You can’t go wrong
Even the name sounds good
Butter and nut’
I agree—–♥♥♥♥♥—–
What I love about ‘The Maker’s Diet’, our healthy eating guide is that it is the only regimen I’ve ever followed in my X years of wanting to lose weight which has ever worked. Silly me, when I was a teenager I thought I was fat, I was just 16 – I knew nothing. Now I’m almost 34 (my birthday is next week – 30th June!) and I know I’m fat!
In 2005 after our second baby, my husband saw Jordan Rubin on TV talking about his illness and recovery and how he accomplished it by eating right, according to what he called biblical principles. We asked my sister who was living in Boston then to get us the book. She did and while I was on maternity leave, we went on a lifestyle change. It worked. I lost 15kg over months, by eating and rebounding (jumping on a trampoline) twice a day for 10 minutes initially and longer as we progressed. That was the first time ever I’d succeeded at weight loss. I learnt a lot about healthy eating and wise choices and though I’ve put on weight (I kept the weight off till I got pregnant for #3 in 2006), there are things that haven’t changed since then, like using wholewheat flour in some bakes – pancakes and waffles and muffins. I don’t enjoy the white flour versions anymore. We eat more wholewheat bread, use honey and maple syrup as the standards and eat nuts. Of course, the key to healthy eating is moderation! Even a good thing can have its downside in excess.
Why do I think I enjoy ‘The Maker’s Diet’? Because of the freedom it gives. The ‘diet’ is split into 3 phases of 2 weeks (with the final phase being a continuum with forever) focusing on fresh, natural foods and drinks. Phase 1 restricts certain starchy foods, in fact, the closest thing to grains on the list in this phase is lentils. The other components are vegetables and fruits and drinks.
But I essentially have all these ingredients and I can, in true KB style experiment to my heart’s content. And that’s what I’ve been doing – thinking up new recipes and trying them out.
The one thing that helped me this week, especially with working full time is preparing things ahead. Like my butternut squash. Which I call my Potato replacement. Because I’ve discovered that you can use them in a lot of recipes where you would normally use potatoes but you could also do more.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
What have I learnt about Butternut squash?
- It is extremely tasty and versatile – it is great in both sweet and savory dishes: we’ve had purees of it, soups and last week – a risotto. It would be superb in rice pudding too! Perfect for Soup it! Sauce it!! Bake it!!!
- It makes an extremely good potato replacement
- It makes an extremely good pumpkin replacement
- It makes a good sauce too, thinned
- Did I mention low calorie?
- Freezes well
So far, what I’ve done is make a puree and use that in different recipes. Next week, I’ll make chips and chunks of it!
Tip: “To cut a butternut squash in half, use a serrated knife’. Even then, I still found it tough to get two perfect halves!
Butternut Squash pureé
Ingredients
2 butternut squashesOlive oil to baste Salt, to season PS if I keep it simple now, I can use it in a variety of ways later without one flavour predominating and limiting me!
How to
Pre-heat oven to 175 deg C
Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. They are edible just like pumpkin seeds
Place the halves face up, skin down on a baking tray and oil, using a brush or just drizzle over. Then sprinkle some salt over them all.
When people add more flavourings like sugar and spices or ginger and garlic, they put them in the hollows!
Bake uncovered for an hour or longer, till the squash is tender. Test by inserting a fork, the flesh should give easily.
Let it cool down and then gently scoop the flesh out of the skins, which would have softened considerably.
My two butternut squashes yielded a good 8 cups of puree, which have lasted us a week.
What did I cook with the Butternut squash?
On Sunday, I made some pan fried gnocchi, using chestnut flour and almond meal as the key binders. Stunning. Simply stunning – sweet, nutty and filling. For dinner, we had some pureé with lamb and carrot noodles….ok, really a carrot salad.
On Monday, we had some Butternut and coconut milk soup with chicken – it was thick and luxurious to taste and filling too. And I took some to work on Tuesday!
On Wednesday, we had the leftover pureé, just warmed up with roast chicken, roast carrots & parsnips and some gravy.
And this Thursday, we had the last of it with some baked seabass and aubergines.
I was shocked at how far it went, cause we had 2 portions of the gnocchi (one is in the freezer) and 2 portions of soup. And it formed most of the sides we had this week!
We ♥ it and this is one ingredient going in the tick category for life!
I plan to test some more and things like Cottage pie come to mind and dauphinoise! We shall see.
Now, if you’re new to KB, my camera is in the shop…undergoing repairs, which is why there aren’t photos of the dishes – I took these a few weeks ago when I first made it with a delightful recipe from a Canadian friend of mine. She gave me a recipe for a sauce which is served with maple butter and pasta. But I want her to do a guest post here so I’ll save some of the gist.
This is heading off to Weekend herb blogging #239, started by Kalyn , run by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once and this week hosted Chris from Mele Cotte.
So, what is your favourite way to eat BNS? Please let me know, thanks![wpurp-searchable-recipe]Butternut Squash Revealed – – – [/wpurp-searchable-recipe]
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