Roasting “The Squash”

Yesterday on my wall I posted it was roasting day. Yes, some people
have rest days and I have roasting day. I was catching up on prepping meals for my family after the Memorial Day weekend. I didn’t realize it but it created a buzz with the same question. Why do you roast it face down and not face up? For me it was just natural to put it face down.

MY reasons:
1. The squash is on a flat surface and not on the tilted side. (When I was taught to cut vegetables it was ingrained in my brain to do that.) It also makes the cooking more even since the squash is less likely to tilt.
2. This one is the main reason, I am really OCD about cooking and I don’t like it when some of my top is browned. I use my butternut as a puree and it messes up the color. My spaghetti squash I use it as a pasta, same reasoning I don’t like random brown strands.

My exceptions:
When I am caramelizing the top of a butternut or acorn squash to make a dessert. However, even then I would cook it face down first to cook evenly and the flip to brown at the end.

I understand that when you are combing through the millions of recipes in Pinterest, there are recipes that tells you to put it face up or face down. This can be very confusing.

When you go to the great Epicurious.com, they state:

“… Roasting spaghetti squash whole took too long, roasting halves face-up made it too dry, and roasting it inverted in a bit of water made it too wet….”

At the end, cooking is personal and it’s a medium to channel your creativity. You can use whatever method you find works for you but this is why I roasted it face down. ☺