Winter squash are great!
They keep a long time on the kitchen table and are easy to prepare. We use this method for acorn squash and the bottom half of butternut squash. It comes from this recipe at Allrecipes.com. The comments for this recipe have a bunch of interesting tips including how to make the squash in the microwave instead of the oven.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. (Actually, you can use almost any temperature. If you’ve got something else to go in the oven, just throw the squash in and it’ll be happy.)
- Bake the squash whole for about 30 minutes.
- Remove the squash and slice the squash in half long-ways (or longitudinally, if you prefer).
- Scoop out the seeds and the goopy parts.
- Put the squash halves in an oven pan with the peel down.
- Place a pat of butter and a teaspoon (or more!) of maple syrup in each squash half. You can substitute brown sugar for the maple syrup. If you’d like not-so-sweet squash, see other seasoning ideas at the end of this post.
- Pour half an inch of water in the pan. This keeps the squash moist.
- Place in the oven. You can check it after 30 minutes but longer is better. Use a fork to see if the flesh is soft.
- Allow a few minutes for the squash to cool before serving. Serve the halves intact or scoop out all the flesh and serve that.
Butternut squash neck slices
After baking the whole squash for 30 minutes, cut off the bottom. The bottom can be cooked using the method above. Then peel the neck and slice it into ¼ to ½ inch slices. Place these on a cookie sheet and drizzle with butter and maple syrup or brown sugar. Bake for 12 minutes or so at 350. The slices are done when they’re soft, but be careful not to leave them too long or they’ll get dry.
Whichever part you use first (neck or bottom), wrap the other in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator when it’ll keep just fine for a few days.
Not-so-sweet squash
We like our squash with butter and maple syrup, but you could play around with other flavors. For instance, you could use olive oil instead of butter and cinnamon, ginger, cardamon, or lemon zest instead of maple syrup.
thoughtful consumption 
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Sounds delicious! I made this great Moroccan-style stuffed acorn squash over the weekend.
http://michaelbeyer.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/moroccan-style-stuffed-acorn-squashes/
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