Much love and respect to my friends that are vegetarians BUT I live my life proudly as a Meat-a-tarian!!! I like to blame it on my culture or my upbringing as a meal was never complete without a side of a good sized portion of protein! Soooo, much to my surprise a few weeks ago, I was at the Musical Instruments Museum in Scottsdale
There I was munching away on some yummy food, when to my surprise my friend Alex comments on the fact that I was eating vegetables...with a superior look filled with indignation...I promptly responded - NO I AM NOT!!! She is like...yes you are and pointed to the orange looking cubes on my plate. This went on for a while so I will fast-forward to the end where it appears I thought I was eating sweet potatoes but it actually was a SQUASH camouflaging as that and doing a dang good job I must say!
I was soo impressed with the squash's fab impersonation that I went on a quest to spread the good news to all...Well turns out as my friend Veronica G says...."it has been in existence for a while and people actually know of this vegetable." I wont even point out that she rolled her eyes and almost fell off her chair laughing at my surprised expression...humph...anyhoo...I ignore her and plan to sub my sweet potato with squash from now on..
I happily wait for the weekend and woke up with a bounce in my step this past Saturday, got in my car (where I finally noticed all the damage done by the stupid storm last week!!! But that’s a different story!) and drove to my neighborhood Bashas. I ask the perky blond in the produce aisle for my new favorite vege-friend - The Squash! She opens her eyes wide (looking a bit like Bambi I thought!) and said...what kind?!? I am thinking...gosh, I picked a whiz kid this morning and so I repeated slowly so she could comprehend me - the vegetable kind of squash! She then proceeds to start a Wikipedia-worthy explanation about Squash and how there are many kinds including the spaghetti squash, summer squash, butternut squash and so on.
At this point, I am soo perplexed and ready to give up on this adventure when in a last ditch effort I tell her - whichever one is orange on the inside and acts like it’s a sweet potato! She stops and ponders and then takes me over to a group of odd shaped veggies and says ...not quite sure but you may be talking about the butternut squash. Eager to get the hell out of this confusing world of infinite vegetables, I grab one and head over to pay for it!
(Fast Forward 30mins) I am home and super excited to make this Mediterranean inspired dish (recipe loosely stolen from my roommate actually) and so I peel and cube the squash, toss in some chopped onions, a sprig of rosemary, a dash of salt and pepper, some garlic and Italian herbs. Next I douse it in some olive oil and bake for about 40 mins....the aroma of the caramelizing onions and the intermingling of spices makes me instantly ravenous and so I eagerly wait for it to be ready! Ping...yeaaa it’s done...I proceed to eat a hearty portion (it is a vegetable after all) with some grilled chicken and was super proud of my healthy lunch....
As you can tell...this did NOT have a good ending....3 meals of roasted squash and grilled pepper chickens later...i decide to check online for the actual nutritional value of this "now favorite" vegetable!!! Fine, Fine...it was after many of my friends laughed at me and said it’s probably the same as a potato....
Anyhooo...I do check and lo and behold....1 cup of my squash has over 20g of carbohydrates, 85 calories, 4g of Sugar and NO SIGNIFICANT FIBER!!! WTH I exclaim in sadness...at this point, my roommate is trying hard to control her laughter at my crestfallen expression...what the heck am I to do with the rest of this now I wail!!!
I mean, this isn’t like the time, I found out the a red velvet sprinkles cupcake had like 500 calories and cost me 12 weight watchers point and so I couldn’t eat the rest of the day (thanks Mel Goldman for inviting to the NM event where I fell prey to the deliciousness). I KNEW it couldn’t be great for me but I just didn’t KNOW how bad for me it was. This time, I felt BETRAYED...indeed, I felt SQUASH-ED!!! I mean! I forgave it when it deceived me by thinking it was a sweet potato but this was the ultimate betrayal!!! Sniff, Sniff...
So consider this our goodbye dear Butternut squash....we had a great time, it was fun while we lasted....
On to the next one I guess....*sigh*
3 comments:
LMAO @ "whichever one is orange on the inside and acts like it’s a sweet potato! " Like u rili had to take that sass to Basha's lol
LoL!!!
OMG Gbemstar more please you are fantastic between sweet potato (boiled) is fantastic for you, it has a very low glycemic index meaning by the time your body realizes it needs to digest it, it would be sitting pretty in your intestines waiting to come out :) so eat away and potatoes (regular) are good for you as well, a good source of fibre too :)
Fantastic
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