Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Squash Good Bye Winter, Hello Summer

I enjoy my food simple and these two dishes are so simple but do not lack flavor.

Braised Squash with Wilted Spinach:

Pan fry summer squash in olive oil (I enjoyed using my garlic oil here) with an herb of your choosing. I went with tarragon.
With one bag of spinach, toss with a light basil balsamic vinegrette salad dressing. Spead it across a cookie sheet and broil for a few minutes, toss and continue to broil until it's all warmed, but not cooked all the way through.

Pile the spinach on your plate and place the squash over the bed. Sprinkle with salt and better and welcome summer squash back into your life.


Butternut Squash Fries with Vanilla:

I picked up a fun, new salt - vanilla salt! Where to use it? - sweet fries of course!

Here I chopped up butternut squash into fry-like pieces, tossed with olive oil and baked at 400F for awhile. I became impatient and wanted them before they became crispy fries so I took them out, sprinkled them with a wonderful new vanilla finishing salt. This was a perfect way to celebrate the savory of the squash and the sweetness of the sugars within the squash. I love this salt and will find many more uses for it I am sure.


In the oven now - a chocolate version of my glutten-free almond cookies. They smell heavenly!

8 comments:

Maggie M. said...

I love butternut squash fries! So healthy and they taste way better than potato fries (I think). I have a butternut squash sitting in my kitchen that I've been meaning to make them with. I do mine with oregano, cinnamon & salt (there's a recipe on my blog). Sounds odd, but sooooo good.

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

Vanilla salt?! That sounds so cool!

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

squash + spinach = lovely pairing.

wow, I never thought to pair butternut squash with a vanilla-salt - how intriguing!!

ooh, those cookies you're baking sound heavenly!!

Bianca said...

Hmmm....vanilla salt? Interesting, but what a great way to use it!

Sam said...

Vanilla salt? YUM! Is there a better taste combination than sweet and salty?!

Wheeler's Frozen Dessert said...

Ooh man, that spinach and squash dish looks amazing!

Liz Ranger (Bubble Tea for Dinner) said...

vanilla salt! that's amazing! my oatmeal would go the moon for that stuff. :o

Anonymous said...

I haven't had fries in a looong time, and I love squash! I've never heard of vanilla salt before, but it sounds like it'd smell really good :p