My gym celebrated its “34th birthday” this week with raffles, free bring-a-friend-day and loads and loads of junk food. Now, I’m just as guilty as the next person of running five miles and then going home to inhale a plate of spaghetti and meatballs washed down with a vanilla ice cream chaser, but that doesn’t mean I want to do it AT the gym. We’re talking bakery cookies, a large layer cake and I think I even spotted Hawaiian Punch.

Since I go to a large, chain fitness club, I understand the need to celebrate and thus, self-promote. But to me, the number 34 is odd in itself. Why not wait until the club turns 35 and REALLY go all out? Maybe employ cocktail waiters to deliver mini-quiches to runners on the ellipticals? An ice luge in the Pilates studio? It wouldn’t have been so hard to spring for a few cases of Luna Bars and Gatorade or Vitamin Water. And hanging streamers from the gym ceiling? Just not needed. It would have been nice to instead see those funds turned over to something useful, like yoga mats or properly working air conditioning in the cycling studio.

Anyway. . On to the important stuff.

This weekend when I was at my mom’s she had a butternut squash in the refrigerator. Now, I give my mom plenty of credit for being an excellent cook…when she wants to be. When she was feeding two growing kids, we had a balanced dinner every night. When I was in high school and she was working full-time and running a household, we ate take-out regularly. That isn’t to say we had McDonald’s fries for dinner every night, but it wasn’t rare for us to bring in baked ziti and salad from our go-to Italian restaurant.

Needless to say, I was a little surprised to see a labor-intensive root vegetable staring back at me when I went to get an iced tea.

It turned out she had bought it by accident and before I knew it, I had inherited a butternut squash.

I had never made squash before but inherently loved it for its fall-reminiscent qualities. I decided to experiment a little with what I had in the kitchen this time, despite the fact that I’ve always been a stickler for recipes. This was so good,

Mashed Butternut Squash

What You Need:

1 medium squash (cut into cubes; approx 20 oz., makes 2 cups mashed)
1/3 cup dried cranberries
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. light butter
1/4 cup chopped pecans, plus additional for garnish if desired

How-To:

1. Slice squash in half, lengthwise, and scoop seeds as though you would a pumpkin. Set face up in a baking dish in about 1/4 inch of water and bake for about an hour at 350F.

2. When squash is tender, let sit until it’s cool enough to peel (you could probably do this before baking, but I didn’t so I’m not sure which is easier). Chop into bite sized chunks so that it’s easy enough to mash with a potato masher (or large serving spoon. If you have a brand-new kitchen like I once did, it’s okay if it’s a little bit, ahem, understocked).

3. Add brown sugar and butter and continue to mash (at this point I traded large serving spoon for a wire whisk. You can’t say I’m not resourceful) until blended.

4. Add cranberries and pecans (I used about 1/4 cup of pecan but I’m not huge on pecans, so you could probably add more if you like them). Garnish with additional pecans for serving.

Recipe yields about 2 cups of butternut squash; enough for about 4 nice sized side dish servings.

Tagged as: mashed butternut squash, squash