Winter Squash Bars

I feel like I may have been a little too hard on winter squash in a few of my previous posts (here and here).  At the time of writing those I had begun to feel overwhelmed by the onslaught of squash that was arriving in our weekly CSA share.  When you choose to participate in a CSA you give up control of a little of your grocery shopping in exchange for supporting small scale agriculture and eating more locally.  However when you receive unfamiliar ingredients nearly every week, even the most liberal supporter can start to wear down.

Up until this fall I had only cooked winter squash a handful of times in my life (the occasional experiment with spaghetti or baked squash dishes).  Since I had begun to get sick of all forms of squash, and knowing that we still had a month left in our CSA share, I made the decision to rededicate myself to getting satisfaction out of the squash.

After a little bit of Googling and pondering, I decided desserts and baked goods was the direction to head in with the squash.  LJ and I don't make desserts often because when they are in the house we devour them without abandon until they are gone.  We have found the only way we can maintain some semblance of self control is by doing our best to refrain from buying sweets to keep in the pantry or fridge.  To redeem the winter squash piling up on our counter I would have to lift our self imposed ban on desserts.

I settled on making these Pumpkin (Winter Squash) bars after reading that the author's child refers to them as "cake" which made me feel confident that LJ and I would enjoy this rendition of squash.  The recipe couldn't be more simple.  The only change I made was out of necessity since we do not own a jelly roll pan.  I used a glass 9 x 13 pan and baked the bars a little longer than the original recipe called for.

The tray of bars didn't last long, which was a delicious reminder of why we don't keep sweets on hand.

Pre adding of the squash

Post adding of the roasted squash

Dry ingredients

Finished bars