Bacon Wrapped Candied Butternut Squash Bites

Say what?? That’s a stupid long title. It’s fine though. It explains it all right there so you’re not in for any surprises. Unless you like surprises. Then that sucks for you.

I’m just getting back into the swing of things at home. Yesterday was almost a complete flop other than getting this recipe done (because butternut squash and bacon were the only two things in my house), grocery shopping, and working out. Other than that, I watched 7 episodes of Game of Thrones and cuddled with Jackson (that’s my puppy if you haven’t seen him yet). It was pretty pathetic. I thought about doing laundry…not into it. I thought about answering back to any of the emails I received over the past 5 days away in Austin…not into it. I even thought about going to my favorite food truck so I didn’t have to cook or think about doing something productive…not into it. I was a sack of Jackson poop.

Speaking of Jackson’s poop. We are slooooowly getting better with potty training. Slowly but surely. I don’t quite understand why he is so good at going outside then later on he just does it inside. Whatever. He will get it someday. I guess I should just be thankful that he’s doing it in plain sight instead of behind the couch or under our bed. I think…I’m just going to put that thought to the back of my mind.

The one issue we are running into is him biting all the time. He’s teething obviously, he’s only 11 weeks, but when we are just playing or he is excited to see us when we take him out of his crate, he’s biting everything. We have plenty of different chew toys for him from soft elk bones, to nyla bones, to soft toys, to balls, to everything in between. But he obviously wants to just play with us and biting and nipping is what he would do with other dogs. He doesn’t really understand no and when I make a terrible noise to hopefully scare him away from biting, he then wants to bite my face. We really aren’t getting anywhere. Any ideas to keep him from biting hands? I can’t rub bitter apple all over my body. Or can I…

PS- my birthday is next week and I’m dying to think of a fancy cake to make. I’m not really creative. But that’s my goal this year. Get really creative and make a cake that’s annoyingly good. Strict paleo people will seriously hate me, but I don’t care. It’s my birthday and I’ll cry if I want to. Cry meaning eat cake.

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Bacon Wrapped Candied Butternut Squash Bites

  • Yield: 3-4 1x

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 small butternut squash
  • 1/4 cup coconut sugar, divided
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 pound of bacon (may need to use less depending on the size of the squash)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Cut the long end of the butternut squash off of the bulb. I only used the long end because the bulb is so tough to deal with because of it’s shape, but feel free to use it.
  3. Remove skin from the butternut squash then chop squash into 1 inch cubes. Place cubes into a bowl along with half of the 1/4 cup of coconut sugar (meaning 2 tablespoons), cinnamon and a pinch of salt. Mix the sugar with the squash to well coat.
  4. Cut bacon in half (not lengthwise) to create about 3-4 inch slices of bacon. Wrap each slice of bacon around a cube of coated butternut squash, placing the end of the bacon underneath the squash cube so it doesn’t unravel when you bake them. Repeat with all cubes.
  5. Place bacon wrapped cubes on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle the rest of the coconut sugar (2 tablespoons) on top of the bacon wrapped cubes.
  6. Place in oven and bake for 30 minutes. Check at about 20 minutes to make sure they are not burning, this will just depend on the thickness of your bacon.
  7. Place a toothpick through the bacon wrapped cubes and eat up!

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Oh, Hi! I’m Juli.

I’m a food hoarder. And a really bad dancer. If you don’t know me well, you will probably not understand my humor. Therefore, I apologize ahead of time. Thanks for listening to my ramblings of my ever-changing life and trusting my kitchen mishaps. Your trust in me is appreciated.

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42 thoughts on “Bacon Wrapped Candied Butternut Squash Bites”

  1. As soon as he starts biting/nipping at you, immediately put him down and/or stop playing with him. Ignore him and go into another room and shut the door for 30 seconds or so. Your love and attention are his #1 priority and as soon as he associates his biting w/ you leaving him, he will begin to cease the bad behavior.

    Jackson is stupid cute, btw.

    1. I am a dog trainer… and I specilize in puppies! 🙂

      First off please dont practice any of the techniques that have shared with you that use any type of force, fear or pain. It is not necessary and the only thing Jackson will learn is to be afraid of your hands and could lead to issues with his mouth being handled later down the road.
      You should also not play with your hands around Jackson’s head or face in a teasing manner. I know a lot of people do this but you will encourage his biting if you do.
      When you are playing with Jackson make sure you are using toys to play with, tugs toys, bite toys, chase toys, etc so he wont be so tempted to bite your hands. If he leaves the toy and begins to bite your hands, gently pick him up from behind (so he cant get his mouth on your fingers) carry him out and away from your body and place him him down gently behind a door in another room, then shut the door. Leave the door shut for 10-30 seconds so he understands that he has been seperated from you. Let him out and give it another try with playing and if he continues to bite anywhere on your body or your clothes, he goes back into the room for a few more seconds. You will have to do this several times before he begins to understand that if he bites you or your clothes, you will not play with him. If you are consistant with this you will see a huge improvement pretty quickly. Good luck and email if you have questions. I am glad to help.

  2. 1. German chocolate cake
    2. Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
    3. A gingerbread chocolate cake with fudge inside
    4. A coconut cake with a raspberry sauce

    Omg I love cake

  3. We had the same biting problem with our golden retriever as a puppy. Try wrapping his lip around his tooth (or a couple) and press hard enough to elicit a pain response but not enough to cause injury. Keep doing it and he’ll eventually learn not to bite. Worked for us! Puppy teeth are especially painful, aren’t they?!

  4. Sometimes it’s better to have them pee or poop NOT in plain sight, trust me. One time, our rescue Corrina was peeing in the kitchen so I hurried in to clap my hands loudly so she would stop (I read somewhere that this would scare them and make them stop using the bathroom). Well, I didn’t know the pee had already travelled to the front of the kitchen so when I walked in I slipped and fell right into it! I blame the dog…and the glass of wine I just had.

  5. Don’t worry- he’ll definitely grow out of the mouthiness. Our dog trainer recommended trying to have a toy nearby to sort of shove (nicely) into our pup’s her mouth when she started getting mouthy with peoples’ hands to shift her focus. It stopped completely at about 7 or 8 months.

    More Jackson pics, please!

  6. My bday is Saturday…yay for April babies!!! I’ve been trying to find a cake recipe to make (yes I make my own bday cake too) so if you happened to make a cake and post the recipe by Saturday I would be eternally grateful and love you forever!

  7. If you post a recipe for a crazy amazing cake I will totally make that for my son’s birthday in 2 weeks, and of course a practice round beforehand! So sick of passing up cake at parties. The carrot breafast cookies came out really nice btw 🙂

  8. Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake. Back of the Hershey’s cocoa box. Also called the hot water cake (because you put in a cup of boiling water). Must do the frosting too.It is truly the best. cake. ever. I promise. Second best cake is a Giada cake recipe Apricot, almond, pine nut cake. These are from back before my Paleo/primal days and come out on special occassions. Happy Birthday!

  9. I’m no doggy expert, but I have raised two puppies, and they both went through the “biting” stage. Does Jackson have play dates yet with other pups his size? I found with my dogs that after they had been socialized the nipping gets better. Sometimes it just takes another pup to put them in their place, or to let them know play boundaries in their “doggy language” and the mouthing gets better.

    Love your blog! Thanks for sharing your food and life with us 🙂

  10. So funny that you posted a butternut squash recipe the day after George did! One of your recipes that I’ve loved (among pretty much every one I’ve tried) was your pumpkin bread french toast, which I made with butternut squash instead. Yum! I also cooked up some butternut squash this week, just sauteed in coconut oil with cinnamon, but I was thinking that I bet it would be good with bacon! This recipe looks like a great weekend snack/meal or appetizer!

    I’m thinking of doing a shish kebab (spelling?) party next month on the grill. I bet these would be good between some marinated chunks of meat and pineapple. Any other shish kebab suggestions?

    Anyway, for Jackson, some other readers had great suggestions. If those things don’t work, you can also try yelling “Ow!” really loud and acting hurt when he does play bite you. My boyfriend used to be a dog trainer and this works on his dogs every time!

  11. What we used to do with our dog is every time he’d go to bite we’d immediately give him a toy to chew on so he would know that the toys are for biting not our hands.

    My birthday was yesterday and I didn’t get cake (which is not really ok with me), so i hope you can figure out something because a birthday should never go without cake. I may have to find some cake to have today to make up for it….

  12. As someone mentioned above, we also did the lip wrapping around the tooth. It solved the problem quickly with our Great Dane. I also agree that you need to do some socialization with him, let him go and play with other dogs, maybe a puppy kindergarten class? that way you can also get some training advice. Socialization will help make him an even better behaved dog when he is older. I know that Elana from Elana’s Pantry has really good cake recipes too!

  13. my fave cake is my grandma’s hummingbird cake- just use coconut flour as a swap… so delicious!!! making it for Easter!!!

  14. I definitely recommend the puppy play date idea. My lab was quite mouthy as a puppy. It only took one play date with another puppy around his size to solve that problem. Plus, my pup loved rolling and tumbling with the other pup. 🙂 Good luck!

  15. Happy early birthday!!! Ours must be really close – mine is this Sunday 😀 I asked my boyfriend to make the “birthday chocolate cupcakes” from your blog and can’t wait to see how they turn out. Hope you have an awesome birthday and good luck with Jackson! He is too cute.

  16. Regarding the biting – we have three very mouthy dogs – and especially when puppies, cattle dogs are notorious for NOT having any sort of control – I agree with trying the put down, walk away and ignore.

    I’d also suggest the full mouth technique we had good success with. That is – when we wanted to play with the puppy we PUT something in their mouth so they could not bite us and they only got to play/get snuggles/etc as long as they kept that in their mouth or kept their mouth shut. We’d just keep putting the toy back in whenever they tried to bite.

  17. Ha! Shut the front door!! Mine is on Thursday but I’ll be 30 🙁 I’ll keep saying 29 for a couple of years!
    My pup is teething too and starting humping…he is only 13 weeks -_- when he start nipping/biting I shove my hand in his mouth. Catches him off guard. Works for a little bit. Or give him a lemon, might not work but hilarious to see their reaction. I’m awful. Lol

  18. I made cupcakes from Elanas Pantry (chocolate!) and they were delicious! Haven’t found a good paleo icing yet…

  19. My birthday is next week too. If you can post a cake soon so I can make it for my birthday too. Your recipes are alway wonderful!

  20. The biting will get better. I think all puppies go through this stage. I know our boxer, Caesar did. (the pooping will also get better as well – he is still very much a baby). For the biting, tell him “NO!” very sharply then ignore him for a few minutes every time he does it.
    Our big issue with our dog was him jumping up (and he is a BIG dog so we couldn’t have him doing that). We were told by a dog trainer to squeeze his paws just enough for him to feel it every time he jumped, and that seemed to work. Might work for biting as well.

  21. McKenzie Fullford

    When he bites, grab the bottom of his jaw with your thumb on his tongue and hold it for a few seconds. He’ll pull away and he’ll hate it, but keep doing it until he stops and walks away.

  22. This looks delicious! And as for the biting, it sounds mean but really isn’t. Get really dominant with him. When our dog nipped, we grabbed him by the scruff and put him in his back and held him there and said no in a firm voice. Being on their back and grabbing their scruff shows them that you are the alpha and did not like what they did. Worked for us, but good luck!!! Puppies are so hard but so worth it

  23. We have a 6 mo old lab. She is crazy hyper. We had a biting problem. I read somewhere that if you yelp it scares them and mimics the reaction they would get from their litter mates. It worked! She doesn’t bite me or my daughter. My husband didn’t go along. She still bites him.

    I made a birthday cake a couple weeks ago for my niece. It was fantastic. I received rave reviews from everyone. They weren’t even the slightest bit paleo. It was a chocolate cake with “peanut butter” frosting. Heaven! I used sunbutter instead of peanut butter. No one knew it wasn’t peanut butter.

  24. Do you have the calories and serving size posted somewhere and I’m missing it haha or do I figure it up on my own?

  25. Would this work with sweet potatoes instead of squash? Trying to work with what I have at home. Thank you! Love your recipes!!!

  26. Tried this as an app for Easter. Even the pickiest of eaters LOVED them! Thanks Juli! Love the ideas!

  27. His mother would pin him or grab him by the scruff of the neck
    Try the scruff and make him look you in the eye and tell him you are unhappy with him.
    Want to see pur rug tgat is tassel less?

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