Squash/Pumpkin

Last weekend, my mom brought me some squash that I had cooked this fall and left in her freezer. As much as I do enjoy squash, this type (unidentified) was not my favorite, so I had to come up with ways to use it. I decided to make some pumpkin recipes and substitute the squash for the pumpkin. To make the squash be a similar consistency to canned pumpkin, I processed it in the blender.

First, I made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
The only adjustment I made to make them more healthy was to substitute in 1/3 cup of whole wheat flour instead of using all white flour. Maybe I'll try adjusting something else next time, but they're just too good to mess with the recipe much.

Combine:
1 2/3 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips
In a separate bowl, whisk:
2 large eggs
3/4 cup canned pumpkin (or, in my case, squash)
*one 15 oz. can of pumpkin is the amount to double the recipe
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Stir the ingredients all together and spoon into 12 greased muffin pans. Bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes.

Okay, so I chose to use those paper muffin cups since I had some and wanted to use them up, but apparently this was bad idea:

I never had them stick to greased muffin pans like they did to the wrappers, so I guess you should follow the recipe rather than my example...

Now this did not use up the mystery squash, so I also made Pumpkin Bars.

Here, I did more alterations, but I will include the non-altered version too.
Beat together:
4 eggs
1 2/3 sugar
1 cup oil (I used 1/2 cup applesauce, 3/4 cup ground flax, 1/4 cup oil)
1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin (I used squash)
In a separate bowl, stir together:
2 cups flour (I used 1 1/2 cups white flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour)
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
Then, mix everything together, pour into a 15"x10" pan and bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes. I don't have that sized pan, so I used a 9"x13" pan and it took about 35 minutes.
Cool and frost with cream cheese icing:
3 oz. cream cheese
1/2 cup softened butter
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar

So although it still tastes good, I think that I would prefer this without the flax seed. It would probably be better with a full cup of applesauce for the oil (or just with oil if you're going for tasty over healthy :)