Stuffed butternut squash is an easy way to roast these beauties.

Stuffed butternut squash

This stuffed butternut squash ensures that you are getting plenty of beta-carotene. It can be roasted from start to finish in under an hour; the aim of this site is slow food, made fast.

The filling adds a nutty-flavour; using an apple, almonds and spinach makes this into a very wholesome dish.

You could in fact use any squash, and another green like kale instead of spinach; better still a mixture of the two.

Cooking for wellness with sound nutritional principles need not be arduous; keep it simple.

Combining different coloured foods that complement each other is what it's all about.

Apparently half a million children go blind every year because of a vitamin-A deficiency^[4]; this stuffed butternut squash twice a week would save them from a life of misery.

Ingredients

1 or 2 butternut squash depending on size
1 cup of spinach, washed and deveined
1/2 an onion
1 apple, cored and lightly-chopped
3 cloves of garlic
2 TBSP of almonds; briefly whir in a blender
The chopped-pulp of half a lemon
1/2 cup of feta-cheese
One frond of rosemary or thyme
A stick of cinnamon
Butter and olive oil

Go for it

Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Cut the squash in half, scrape out the seeds and criss-cross the flesh. Roast on a baking tray in the centre of the hot oven, hollowed side down, for 20 minutes.
Flip the squash and drop a chunk of butter into the hollow and dribble the cut surfaces generously with olive oil. Liberally grind black pepper over the whole area, but no salt. That comes later from the feta-cheese. Roast for another 15 minutes and then test with a sharp knife that it is cooked.
Meanwhile coarsely chop the apple along with the spinach.
Heat a chunk of butter in a pan and, when warm, drop in the rosemary-frond, the cinnamon and the onion; sweating it until the bits are translucent. Then turn up the heat to brown, add the wet spinach and apple; cook for a few minutes longer with the lid on.
Take the baking-tray out of the oven, and increase the size of the hollows by scraping out about a cup of the flesh.
Then spoon the squash you have scooped into the mixture in the pan and fry for a further minute or two until it begins to brown. Finally add the garlic.
Stir in the lemon pulp and another chunk of butter and cook for a minute or two.
Spoon the filling into the hollows in the roasted butternut. Break the feta-cheese over the contents, and sprinkle the whole with the blended almonds.
Return to the hot-oven for about 5 minutes.

Stuffed butternut squash

Stuffed butternut squash is an easy way to roast these beauties. By adding the nutritional virtues of other items like the spinach or kale, the almonds and the feta cheese it is now a delicious whole meal, with plenty of protein, unrefined carbohydrate and healthy fatty-acids.The very special phytonutrients like beta-carotenes, lutein and the folate turns this into an appetising, non-fattening meal that will do little to raise your blood glucose; with a host of minerals too.

If concerned, take a ten minute walk so the sugars would be turned into glycogen instead of disturbing your insulin output.

Type 2 diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is a pernicious disease caused primarily by chronic over-consumption of refined carbs. Perhaps your BMI is around 30 or God forbid higher, and you are concerned about starches; rightly so. Butternut has a low glycemic index of 51 according to Livestrong^[1], perhaps a touch higher because it has been roasted, but reduced by the added protein and healthy fats.

Intrinsically butternut and all squash are a very nutritious and beneficial vegetables for everybody and especially diabetics^[2]; the high fibre content alone helps keep us regular making it a star.

If you are overweight, simply have a smaller portion to limit the glycemic-load. Avoid foods like this stuffed butternut squash at your peril.

Livestrong state that the glycemic-index of butternut is a low 51^[3]; better still, based on a 1/3 of a cup has a starch load of only 3. It's all the fibre that keeps the net carbs so minimal.

Western civilization eats less than half the recommended amount of fibre; that's why colorectal tumours abound.

Is going to the toilet a misery? Normal faeces should look like a long, thin snake. A bowel-movement should take no more than a few minutes.

Butternut smoothies

Smoothies are another way of getting very nutritious foods into us. Again keep the banana down to a quarter to minimise the glycemic load.

Made with freshly-ground nuts and seeds this perfect butternut smoothie is an excellent way to start the day; again, we add a young leaf of kale or spinach.

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