Squash is always kind of a gamble for me. Last year we planted a lot of seeds and ended up with only a few squash. This year, we planted three seeds and ended up with close to twenty fully mature butternut squash before the first frost. The catch is that I’m the only one in the family that enjoys squash. It wouldn’t have been an issue originally. Peanut loved pureed squash with her rice cereal, but that was before she started to refuse anything that resembled baby food. Had she stayed on course, we would have worked through it with no problem. I can’t blame her. I’m guessing most of us reading this post have moved on from baby food as well.

I had some failed attempts at introducing the rest of the kiddos to squash last year – including a recipe that was basically a shepherd’s pie with squash in place of the mashed potatoes. It looked awesome on paper, but Potato Boy wasn’t having it and even I had to agree it wasn’t great.

This year we tried something a little more straight forward – squash fries.

Sliced Squash

I had found a handful of different approaches to making squash fries, so I peeled and sliced one squash and we split it three ways: a third of the squash fries were sprinkled with salt and olive oil and baked, a third were dipped in a simple batter and fried, and the last third were fried plain. The DW made a homemade southwest sauce to go with the fries.

Top Left: Batter and Fried, Top Right: Baked, Bottom: Fried

For an occasional treat, the fried squash (no batter) with the dipping sauce was pretty good – think sweet potato fries in texture but squash in taste. And they cooked quick. Only a few minutes in the fryer and they were ready. The healthier baked fries weren’t a bad alternative. Really, the only disappointment were the battered fries – they were just blah. Will you see me subbing out traditional french fries for squash fries on a regular basis? No. But, definitely something we’ll try again.