Butternut Squash!! What to do, what to do?!?!

One of my friends had scads of butternut squash AND they were all huge! At my last visit she offered me her last squashy gem.  I was very eager to accept!! But what to make?!?!  I haven't had too many dealings with squash like this. I pored through many, MANY cookbooks and found a couple to work from. I decided to check on the Internet, too, since I am sure I would find something there.  This is what I settled on... http://southernfood.about.com/od/pierecipes/r/r71128d.htm

Now it was onto the cooking and seeding of the squash. This turned out to be somewhat of a chore and I had to bake it for a lot longer than the recipe stated. Of course, this might have something to do with the fact that the thing was HUGE!  After I scraped the required amount of squishy squash, I put the rest of it back into the oven, so I could extract the rest of the yummy goodness.

This is only half of what I had remaining in the squash. And the bowl is DEEP!

Here is the final product:

I thought I might have extra filling and made a smaller crust. Come to find out, all of the filling would have fit in the big one, but, decided not to waste the small crust. 

After it cooled off a bit, I decided to have the first piece with cool whip.

And then everyone wanted one.  But, they were all a little bit apprehensive. C#2 said, "I've never had squash pie before." Which isn't true. She love, love, lovesssssssssssssssssss pumpkin pie.  I made her try it in front of me. I just love putting people on the spot. Her eyes lit up immediately and she said, "It tastes just like pumpkin!!" And she continued to devour it.  So it was a humongous success and I have enough left over to make many, many more.

Thank you, to my friend for sharing her harvest. She's awesome like that!

Later...