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This was nearly the whole squash harvest (I found a couple more after I took the picture), and I am pretty sure it will meet our squash needs this winter, which is gratifying!
The ones that don't look quite like butternut squash are Sucrine du Berry, a variety from France that has a deep flavor that's sweet and hearty.
We grew the pumpkins too! My grandson planted the seeds, and despite both of us grandparents taking swipes at the resulting vine with the mower (unintentionally of course), we got two. Hey, two is better than none!
Normally I would cook the squash whole, but some of these are so big that they will have to be cut up. But truly, it's much easier to cut and peel the squash after it's baked! And the flesh when baked is nicely caramelized and non-watery, so I do recommend this method, even if you have to quarter it first.
With the small ones (that look tiny there but are actually the usual size) I would bake first and then scrape out the seeds, but this works too.
This one was four pounds, which is four times the normal ones you probably find in the store! The biggest one in the photo is nine pounds! I know because my grandchildren had a good time weighing them.
All you need when you cook the squash this way is butter and salt. It's so good.
The leftovers make a delicious soup (you can also just reheat to serve again). I posted about the sort of thing I make here. Instead of quinoa I used beans and leftover polenta. Everything (except the sausage that I dice) gets pureed and the soup tastes wonderful.
This time I also had beet greens I wanted to use, but I didn't want to add them to the soup lest the color end up revolting. So I cooked those in oil and reduced with balsamic vinegar, adding some salt. It's a nice garnish for a hearty dish!
bits & pieces
- “What makes a ghostly tale worth reading? Or writing? Certainly the supernatural has attracted writers of genius or high talent: Defoe, Scott, Coleridge, Stevenson, Hoffmann, Maupassant, Kipling, Hawthorne, Poe, Henry James… The genre has in it something worth attempting.” Russell Kirk on ghost stories.
- Morbid safetyism, by economist and mother of many, Catherine Ruth Pakaluk
from the archives
- Is it too much to put another bits & pieces here, a sort of link post within a link post? Sorry… A Beatitude
liturgical year
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Mrs. Bee says
Your squashes are wonderful!! As they say, it was a good thing I wasn’t drinking when I read the bit about avoiding a revolting soup color – so funny, and such a real problem!
Confession – I prefer peeling a butternut squash *before* roasting it, I find it somehow very satisfying, while the peeling of the roasted skin away from the mushy flesh… not so much! But every single time I can’t help but thinking that you like to recommend doing it the other way 🙂
I have recently become obsessed with acorn squash, I think the taste is more interesting than butternut – alas, even I will not peel that before roasting 🙂
Big M. R. James fan here – I can still remember having trouble falling asleep as a teenager after reading some of his stories… there was one with “bugs” crawling in an old, old chest that I still shudder just thinking about it.
Adele says
We love our squash too. Our favorite is butterscotch, a variety of butternut.
Charla Lancaster says
Those Brambly Hedge coloring pages!!!! Thank you for sharing.