eG Cook-Off #71: Winter Squash

TeakettleSlim · November 16, 2015

I'm a bit late to the party, but I won't let that stop me. I am a diehard Hubbard fan-- it's the only winter squash that tastes good enough to eat the plain roasted purée by the bowlful. Which I do. Maybe with some marmalade stirred in. I have 3 of the biggest ones I could find waiting to be roasted right now. If you roast a Hubbard or another sweet large squash and cover it well enough in foil that juices and drippings accumulate, you can boil them down at the end and make a lovely molasses-like syrup.

My absolute favorite soup is this one: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/southwestern-pumpkin-soup-104064

Though I double the spices. It's the quickest (no onions!) and smoothest and all around bestest.

I do something similar to the Parmesan squash discussed earlier in the thread, but with extra sharp cheddar. Slice up the butternut and layer it in a pan with cubed cheddar, sprinkle on some thyme and drizzle with cream. Bake until bubbly and brown and soft.

**ElsieD** · November 16, 2015

I'm a bit late to the party, but I won't let that stop me. I am a diehard Hubbard fan-- it's the only winter squash that tastes good enough to eat the plain roasted purée by the bowlful. Which I do. Maybe with some marmalade stirred in. I have 3 of the biggest ones I could find waiting to be roasted right now. If you roast a Hubbard or another sweet large squash and cover it well enough in foil that juices and drippings accumulate, you can boil them down at the end and make a lovely molasses-like syrup.
My absolute favorite soup is this one: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/southwestern-pumpkin-soup-104064
Though I double the spices. It's the quickest (no onions!) and smoothest and all around bestest.
I do something similar to the Parmesan squash discussed earlier in the thread, but with extra sharp cheddar. Slice up the butternut and layer it in a pan with cubed cheddar, sprinkle on some thyme and drizzle with cream. Bake until bubbly and brown and soft.

Do you use canned pumpkin as called for in the recipe or squash? Edited November 16, 2015 by ElsieD (log)

TeakettleSlim · November 16, 2015

Pureed squash.

Nancy in Pátzcuaro · November 17, 2015

Like TeakettleSlim, I'm also late to this party. Because I now live in México my access to familiar hard-shelled squash is limited. Winter squash are showing up now in the mercado but I haven't tried any of them. It's on the top of my food bucket list now after reading this topic. Most winter squash here are cooked in sugar syrup and sold as a snack, so I have no idea if these squash are edible without that sugary preparation. I haven't tried the snack--just the sight makes my teeth hurt.

However a friend drove to Austin 2 weeks ago and I now have a lovely butternut squash on the counter. An earlier post about recipes from the original Greens cookbook sent me back to that old favorite. I especially noted my comment--"This is delicious!"--on the recipe for Winter Squash Gratin (p. 214). Fresh tomato sauce, thinly sliced butternut squash cooked until just tender, fontina or gruyere, thyme--no sugar, no maple syrup, no cream or milk, just squash, tomatoes and cheese, baked just to melt the cheese. This would be brilliant for Thanksgiving. Shoot--it would be wonderful with a chunk of good bread and a glass of wine.

You know, sometimes those old cookbooks deserve a second (or third) look.

I think my friend should have brought me a couple more butternuts. Too many good ideas for just one squash, admittedly a large one, but still--

By the way, I just made a batch of chile jelly, using our local yellow chile perón (elsewhere known as chile manzana) with a sweet red pepper for color. The jars are cooling on the counter and the color is gorgeous. When I licked the spoon I really liked the combination of sweet and hot. I'm going to use it as an ingredient in things like glazes or as a boost of flavor when I need it. I have, however, 7 half-pint jars, which means I'll be giving them out as hostess gifts at holiday parties! You will have to come to Pátzcuaro to get one, though.

To get back to the original topic, I think this jelly would be just fine stirred into some roasted pumpkin/squash or soup. One of the objections to many pumpkin recipes is that they're too sweet--this will fix that.

Nancy from CO but now in Pátzcuaro

gfweb · November 17, 2015

Somewhere I read (Kenji?) that butternut squash has an enzyme that breaks down starch into simple sugars that is active up to ~140F. So if you start a squash cook at 140 for 15 or 20 min and then raise the temp to 350 or so, you will get a much sweeter squash. I've done poorly controlled experiments and believe t hat this is true.

**Smithy** · November 17, 2015

<snip>
However a friend drove to Austin 2 weeks ago and I now have a lovely butternut squash on the counter. An earlier post about recipes from the original Greens cookbook sent me back to that old favorite. I especially noted my comment--"This is delicious!"--on the recipe for Winter Squash Gratin (p. 214). Fresh tomato sauce, thinly sliced butternut squash cooked until just tender, fontina or gruyere, thyme--no sugar, no maple syrup, no cream or milk, just squash, tomatoes and cheese, baked just to melt the cheese. This would be brilliant for Thanksgiving. Shoot--it would be wonderful with a chunk of good bread and a glass of wine.

You know, sometimes those old cookbooks deserve a second (or third) look.

I think my friend should have brought me a couple more butternuts. Too many good ideas for just one squash, admittedly a large one, but still--

By the way, I just made a batch of chile jelly, using our local yellow chile perón (elsewhere known as chile manzana) with a sweet red pepper for color. The jars are cooling on the counter and the color is gorgeous. When I licked the spoon I really liked the combination of sweet and hot. I'm going to use it as an ingredient in things like glazes or as a boost of flavor when I need it. I have, however, 7 half-pint jars, which means I'll be giving them out as hostess gifts at holiday parties! You will have to come to Pátzcuaro to get one, though.

To get back to the original topic, I think this jelly would be just fine stirred into some roasted pumpkin/squash or soup. One of the objections to many pumpkin recipes is that they're too sweet--this will fix that.

Nancy from CO but now in Pátzcuaro

I definitely want to try this. I have a cooler full of winter squash and need to work my way through them. I love the idea of the sweet/hot chile jelly with it! Too bad that we're so far apart; I'd cheerfully swap you a butternut squash for a jar of that jelly.

One question about your gratin, before I make a stupid mistake by guessing wrong, about these instructions:

"Fresh tomato sauce, thinly sliced butternut squash cooked until just tender, fontina or gruyere, thyme--no sugar, no maple syrup, no cream or milk, just squash, tomatoes and cheese, baked just to melt the cheese."

Is it really a 2-step process, then? Slice and bake the squash, then assemble it with the rest of the ingredients and bake long enough to melt the cheese? Do you drain the squash? Bake it covered or uncovered?

Nancy in Pátzcuaro · November 17, 2015

Sorry--I was abreviating the original recipe. It calls for a fresh tomato sauce--onion, garlic, tomato, white wine, a dab of garlic, cooked down to make a sauce. This goes on the bottom of the dish. Slice the squash about 1/4 inch by 3 inches and saute or broil (the low fat method) until barely tender. Lay the slices on the tomato sauce in layers with cheese in between. I assume you'd salt and otherwise season the squash. Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and it's bubbling. Scatter chopped fresh herbs--parsley, marjoram, thyme--over the surface and serve.

As I remember it--the last time I made it was many years ago--it was very satisfying.

Hope this helps--N.

**Smithy** · November 17, 2015

Thanks, that helps a lot.

Thanks for the Crepes · November 17, 2015

Somewhere I read (Kenji?) that butternut squash has an enzyme that breaks down starch into simple sugars that is active up to ~140F. So if you start a squash cook at 140 for 15 or 20 min and then raise the temp to 350 or so, you will get a much sweeter squash. I've done poorly controlled experiments and believe t hat this is true.

I tried to find this with Mr. Google, and the closest I could find was this:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-how-to-roast-vegetables.html

exerpt:

Sweet potatoes naturally contain an enzyme that breaks down starches into maltose. That enzyme is most effective in the 135°F to 170°F temperature zone (any higher and it deactivates completely), which means that the longer a sweet potato spends in that zone, the sweeter it becomes.

This may explain why I like squash and sweet potatoes cooked in the microwave which speeds them through the starch to sugar conversion zone as fast as possible. I prefer a less sweet result, but it's very good information to have, so that you can manipulate your results to your liking.

blue_dolphin · November 17, 2015

I roasted up some little cubes of butternut squash this AM and added them to my hot cereal along with raisins, nuts and maple syrup. Very tasty. Picture over in the breakfast thread in case you want to see a bowl of oatmeal with squash :laugh: !

blue_dolphin · November 22, 2015

I really, really want to eat this squash dish, Caramelized winter squash with wheat berries, dried cherry relish and roasted onions, and thought posting about it here might prod me into giving it a try. The recipe is from Gary Menes, chef at Le Comptoir in Los Angeles. There is a nice write up on the dish by Russ Parsons and a video on the LA Times website. There are rather a lot of steps but all pretty straightforward.

The wheat berries are cooked ahead with a bit of celery, onion, carrot, garlic, thyme, white wine and (of course) plenty of butter.

A dried cherry relish is cooked up from cherries, orange juice and zest, red onion, pistachios (sub squash or pumpkin seeds), parsley, chives and red wine vinegar

An onion jus is prepared ahead by caramelizing red onions in butter then cooking them in water to extract the flavor, reducing the strained liquid and seasoning it with sherry vinegar

The squash is cooked twice, first roasted, halved but skin-on, in the oven and just before service, it is sliced and sautéed with butter, olive oil and thyme.

Whole onions are roasted in the oven in foil with a bit of butter and thyme and then thin wedges are sautéed along with the squash.

There are a couple of differences between the video and the written recipe. In the video, Menes, dots the halved squash with butter, thyme, S&P and brown sugar, wraps it first in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil and places it on a baking sheet cut side up. The written recipe has you place the squash cut side down and wraps the whole thing, baking sheet and all in foil.

And for the onion jus, the video uses a pressure cooker to cook the caramelized onions in water for 30 min while the written recipe does that step on the stove top for an hour. I'd think the PC might be more effective.

I was thinking I might try to shortcut things by using some of my pickled cranberries instead of the cherry relish and finishing with a little artisanal balsamic vinegar but it's really such a lovely recipe, the way it uses thyme to flavor each of the components that I think it deserves to be made as is. The question is.....will I do it!

**David Ross** · November 23, 2015

Sorry folks. We got hit with a terrible storm and at one time 100,000 without power. Three days without power and five days without internet, cell service or cable and finally I can get back to cooking and doing some more winter squash dishes.

gfweb · November 23, 2015

Ouch, David.

My favorite kitchen appliance is our generator.

It lets me keep cooking winter squash (see how I kept on topic?).

ChocoMom · November 23, 2015

Oh, what a fantastic topic this is! I grow a variety of heirloom squashes every year, and I'm always on the lookout for new ways to serve them.

The New England Sugar Pie Pumpkin is a favorite around here. Most years, they grow very, very well despite our short growing season. I make fresh pumpkin pies, pumpkin bars and pumpkin bread. It results in a bright orange pumpkin pie that everyone loves. And, I salt/roast the seeds for my kids to snack on. (I save a few seeds to grow the following year, too.)

This year, I harvested butternuts, Golden Hubbards, and Blue Hubbards, and a 36-pound Big Max pumpkin. (I had scores of acorn and buttercups, but my turkeys discovered them while foraging, and annhilated the whole patch.)

The butternuts, I've found are an excellent candidate for the veggie peeler. After they are halved, seeded, and peeled, I dice them into half inch cubes, toss with EVOO, garlic salt and pepper, and roast them. It makes a fine side dish to poultry!

The Hubbards are a little more difficult to peel and dice, but they also hold their firmness well when diced and baked. I've mashed the butternut and the hubbard, and used in place of potatoes a couple times, and it went over well. They need to be thinned a bit with broth, and garnished with a slab of butter. =)

I prepared a farm-to-table dinner for some visiting relatives last month, and made the diced squash, roasted chicken, honey-buttered carrots, potatoes, kale salad, and apple pie. Very simple foods, but after raising and butchering the chickens myself, and growing all the veggies (and apples) myself, I think it was all the more satisfying and tasty!

Thanks for the great ideas!

**David Ross** · November 24, 2015

Once we got power back on after three days I went to check the trauma caused to the chest freezer. Everything survived, but where was my homemade mincemeat? With meat. The batch I made last year, and doused the mixture with lots of brandy. It was the basis for my next squash dish--mincemeat with roasted, diced, winter squash. The horror! Somewhere during 2015, maybe in the heat of summer, I must have satisfied a craving for mincemeat pie. And now, now mincemeat for the patient little squash and I won't make it by Thanksgiving.

So the new plan is to use some commercial mincemeat and add diced, roasted winter squash, oh and brandy. I'm hoping squash in mincemeat will be delicious.

Anna N · November 25, 2015

I was given three small squashes along with the sweet potatoes. I decided to treat the squashes very simply.

I cleaned the two smallest and roasted them with a bit of olive oil and some butter. I then scooped out the flesh and added a little more butter and a generous sprinkling of Ras el hanout. I think this spice mixture was made for butternut squash!

Served alongside a very simply roasted chicken.

blue_dolphin · November 25, 2015

Here it is, as I described in some detail upthread: caramelized winter squash with wheat berries, dried cherry relish and roasted onions.

Sorry for the crappy iPad picture. It looked a lot better.

So we've got roasted butternut squash, fried in butter - what's not to like? It's sitting on a bed of wheat berries and topped with a dried cherry relish, served with roasted onions and finished with an onion jus. Served with some garlicky kale.

Rather a lot of work, particularly the onion jus that required multiple pans and many hours to convert 3 lbs of onions and a stick of butter into 3/4 cup of sauce. But the result was very tasty and I'm glad I tried it.

MelissaH · November 25, 2015

Has anyone else had trouble finding kabocha squash this fall? I see all kinds of other squashes, with butternut (including the cute little single-serving size variant), acorn, and delicata being particularly prominent right now, but I can't find a kabocha to save my life this year!

TeakettleSlim · November 25, 2015

Ok, ChocoMom-- how do you peel a Hubbard? The best I have been able to come up with is dropping it on the sidewalk and roasting...j sliced my knuckle open to the bone once trying to get at it with a knife!

blue_dolphin · November 25, 2015

Has anyone else had trouble finding kabocha squash this fall? I see all kinds of other squashes, with butternut (including the cute little single-serving size variant), acorn, and delicata being particularly prominent right now, but I can't find a kabocha to save my life this year!

There seem to be plenty of them here in SoCal. I got one at Trader Joe's last week and saw both green and orange kabochas at my local farmer's market as well.

Edited to add: TeakettleSlim, I'm not ChocoMom but if I get a super hard squash, I put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes and that seems to help with cutting it. Now if you've got a monster Hubbard that's bigger than your microwave, the sidewalk may be the best route :laugh: !

Edited November 25, 2015 by blue_dolphin (log)

Anna N · November 25, 2015

Has anyone else had trouble finding kabocha squash this fall? I see all kinds of other squashes, with butternut (including the cute little single-serving size variant), acorn, and delicata being particularly prominent right now, but I can't find a kabocha to save my life this year!

WOW! Kerry Beal and I were just in one of our Asian supermarkets and there was huge pile of kabocha squash. Usually I would have grabbed one but I seem to go well endowed with squash at the moment.

MelissaH · November 25, 2015

I haven't seen them in three different Wegmans stores, my local supermarket or the supermarket in the next town south, the farm market, OR the nearest Trader Joe's. I'm beginning to draw the conclusion that people here must not know what to do with them, so nobody bothers stocking them.

shain · November 25, 2015

Not a squash dish per se, but definitely puts it in top front.

Couscous with vegetable stew is a North African dish and common in Israel thanks to immigrants from Jewish communities in those countries.

In Israel it is by far the most common way to serve couscous.

The stew can be made with chicken, beef or vegetarian. The vegetables and spices vary, but the most common are: butternut squash or pumpkin, zucchini, potatoes, carrot, sweet potatoes and onion. Some also add cabbage. Chickpeas are also a must. I use a spice blend of turmeric, paprika, cumin, black pepper and cinnamon.

Edited November 25, 2015 by shain (log)

Beebs · November 25, 2015

Has anyone else had trouble finding kabocha squash this fall? I see all kinds of other squashes, with butternut (including the cute little single-serving size variant), acorn, and delicata being particularly prominent right now, but I can't find a kabocha to save my life this year!

I feel like I'm having the opposite problem - mostly what I've seen here are kabochas, and not much of the other stuff! Trade you a pile of kabochas for the delicata!

MelissaH · November 25, 2015

I feel like I'm having the opposite problem - mostly what I've seen here are kabochas, and not much of the other stuff! Trade you a pile of kabochas for the delicata!

You're on! Get the U.S. border folks to agree, and we have a deal!

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