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A few years ago I got a traffic ticket for running a stop sign. First, I want you to know, I never intentionally run stop signs. I don’t even roll through them. Being a frequent pedestrian, occasional runner, and generally a decent person who does not wish to kill or even frighten others, I do have respect for stop signs. So I was taken completely by surprise one day when, driving through a sleepy residential San Francisco neighborhood with no other humans or cars in sight, I suddenly heard the sickening half-bleat of a pissy police car’s siren right behind me. I don’t doubt that I had driven through the stop. I do doubt that it was clearly visible. Given that I am not a deliberate scofflaw, and this was not a bustling thoroughfare requiring heavy patrolling, and there was apparently a stealth police car waiting right there at the intersection in question…well, I’ve always suspected the cops might have been filling their quotas with the help of an overgrown sign-obscuring tree, or something like that. (It didn’t occur to me to check until later, and I never did go back to do so.) Or maybe I was just driving like a jerk! Who knows.
Anyway, here is where I almost start to get to the point. At around this same time, my dear friend Betsy had had an unpleasant encounter with a left turn lane and she’d gotten a ticket too. So naturally, we both decided to do online traffic school, together, at Betsy’s house, with hors d’oeuvres. I’d never been so excited about punishment! We picked a time, planned our menu, and counted down the days. And thus was born the “Naughty Gourmet Traffic School.” The traffic school part was actually way more challenging and irritating than we had anticipated—but the food was divine!
So today, from the Naughty Gourmet archives, I share with you Betsy’s Spiced Butternut Squash recipe. It pairs perfectly with any kind of online testing. As we all know, peeling, seeding, and cubing butternut squash can be a hassle, so feel free to use pre-cubed squash, like naughty and lazy gourmets do.
Spiced Butternut Squash
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/8 - ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 4 cups about 1½ pounds peeled and cubed butternut squash
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Mix cumin, coriander, black pepper, cayenne pepper, salt, and sugar in a small dish.
- In a large bowl, toss squash with the oil and spice mix until coated.
- Arrange squash in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet.
- Bake in preheated oven, stirring once or twice, until squash is tender and starting to brown (40 to 50 minutes).
This is THE cutest confession I have ever heard. So much to be learned at naughty-girl school. I went once and loved it. But to work in hors d’oeuvres is a stroke of genius.
Thank you for the recipe.
Love
M
Fond and delicious memories, JuJu!
Just found you via a newsletter from our local bookstore in downtown Pleasanton, where you will be soon! Eagerly exploring the blog and hoping to make it down that night. They were nice enough to do a book thing for me several years ago when Digital Dish came out, a/the first collection of food blog writings that made it into print.
Hi Ellen! So glad you found us and we hope to meet you Wednesday night at Towne Center Books!
A better way to be lazy (without committing seppuku) and not pay premium veg prices for pre-cubed anything: microwave the butternut squash in big chunks if it’s ripe enough or whole if it’s too hard to cut. About 10-12 minutes on HIGH in a dish with a quarter inch of water and either some microwaveable plastic wrap or a big microwaveable bowl over the top to steam it. It’ll cook most of the way if not all, and it’s a lot easier to cube or scoop the cooked squash from the shell–it also beats peeling. Though you might need asbestos fingers to handle it if you’re impatient like me. Fry the amount you want with the spices, garlic, onion, whatever–it’ll brown them in a few minutes without heating the whole house.