Other I have a LOT of winter squash to deal with, need some new recipe suggestions

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Bert2368

Bert2368

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I planted 14 hills of squash and pumpkins in a dual purpose wildlife food plot/overflow for some larger plants which wouldn't fit in my kitchen garden area. The first squash are now ready to eat and there are a LOT of them.

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I planted 10 hills of one of my all time favorites, "Uncle David's Dakota dessert squash" and 2 hills of (a new to me variety), "Queensland giant blue squash". Also 2 hills of "Big Max pumpkins" which deer and bear enjoy eating, plus, raw materials for huge jack o lanterns.
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I've already baked and eaten a couple of this year's "Uncle David's", a nice firm, fairly dry and very sweet squash running usually around 2 - 3 lb. before cooking, similar in appearance to kabocha/buttercup but so sweet it needs nothing but salt, pepper and maybe some butter if baked. I know people who use this squash to make "pumpkin" pie with little or no added sugar.

I just tried a baked piece of the "Queensland blue". Not quite as sweet as the Uncle David's but a nice, firm, fairly dry squash with good texture when baked and very good flavor. They're big, the one I sampled is among the smaller ones but still weighed nearly 9 lb. before seeds were removed.

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Even after the deer and bear eat their fill, I'm going to have quite a few squash this winter. Asking for winter squash recipe suggestions!

Have often done squash simply baked with salt, pepper, butter (and brown sugar if not sweet enough as it came), have tried a squash soup recipe (tasty but a powerful laxative), made squash filled ravioli in the past which were OK but not as good as I've had at some restaurants.

My raw materials:

https://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/uncle-davids-dakota-dessert-organic-buttercup-1630

https://ohioheirloomseeds.com/products/queensland-blue-squash-seeds
https://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/search?item=1757
 
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Bert2368 said:
I just tried a baked piece of the "Queensland blue". Not quite as sweet as the Uncle David's but a nice, firm, fairly dry squash with good texture when baked and very good flavor. They're big, the one I sampled is among the smaller ones but still weighed nearly 9 lb. before seeds were removed.
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That's our main pumpkin type down here. I like it a lot, although I usually use the butternut when we use pumpkin (not that often as low-carb).
 
I auctioned off a gourmet meal for a fundraiser last year and a friend of mine had the winning bid. His girlfriend insisted that he get the curried, roasted butternut squash recipe from me, so I had to spend a few minutes to write it up the best I could. I think it could easily be adapted to your winter squashes and/or pumpkins. Here it is, happy cooking and eating.


1 very large butternut, or two smallers



· Oven to 350 F (175 C)

· Cut the squash in half, longways, scoop out the seeds and throw them out or do whatever with them, not used here.

· Place on a pan lined with parchment paper, cut side down.

· When a small paring knive is inserted into the thickest part of the neck (not near where the seeds were) to test for doneness, should take about 1/2 hour to 45 min.

· Move onto other tasks, but when it is done, turn over and let cool for a bit.



While the squash is roasting



· Take two leeks and get rid of the outermost layers, trim away any dark green stalks at the top and the roots, so you are left white and pale green only. Cut in to about 4 inch lengths. Rinse any visible dirt off.

· Dice the white part and about 1/2 of the pale green and submerge in a bowl of cold water, massage and rub the pieces a bit to dislodge any remaining dirt and leave them to soak a few minutes. Then lift them out to a strainer and give a few shakes, these will go early into the soup making process

· For the remaining pale green parts, cut lengthwise in half, then cut into thin matchsticks, lengthwise. cut strips into about 1 1/2" pieces, soak and clean exactly as the other parts above. These matchsticks will become the garnish, let them soak a few minutes, then lift them out to a strainer and set aside.

· Dice a large yellow Spanish onion and set it to sweating in your large soup pot with a tablespoon or two of veg oil (like canola), add a bit of salt here.

· Peel and chop two or three large carrots, dice and add to the pot, a tiny bit more salt. Stir it up, like Bob Marley

· Add the diced leeks after shaking off as much water as you can, teeny bit of salt. Stir it up, like Bob Marley

· Peel, halve, and dig out seed core of 2 or 3 granny smith apples, chop em up and add to the pot, Marley it.

· After all these ingredients sweat a bit, add a about 2 tablespoons of curry powder, stir for about a minute, until it becomes fragrant.

· Fill the pot a couple inches past the ingredients with chicken stock, OR to keep it vegetarian, even vegan at this point, veg. stock. Bring to a simmer.

· Put on latex food gloves and dig out the flesh of the squash and add to the pot, leaving the skin behind (and whatever seeds you missed, you giant slacker). The gloves will protect you from any residual heat and also from the insidious nature of squash that seems to soak right into your skin and makes it feel gross even after washing your hands several times, yuck…

· Let is simmer about 20 minutes

· Blend finely in batches, once it is all back in the soup pot, if it seems way too thick, add some more stock until it is the desired soupiness. Taste and adjust the salt if needed. Hot sauce could be applied here. When I made this last time, it did need a little splash of Cholula.



Before service.

· Take your matchsticks of leek, which should still be damp (if not, do what you gotta do and stay fly) toss with corn starch and fry in about 1/2" of oil until nicely browned, agitate them while they are frying (by this, I don't mean humiliate them verbally, Joel! Turn them with tongs). Depending on the size of your pan, how much oil, you may want to do this in batches. After, I sent the oil through a paper coffee filter and used it to saute things that day or the next, it has a brilliant flavor from the leeks. When they are nice and brown, remove to a paper towel lined plate and salt them up a bit. When cool, they can be removed to an airtight container where they will be good a couple days.

· Remove a dollop of crème fraiche for each bowl you think you will serve, mix in a tad of heavy cream to make it a tiny bit looser.

· Serve the soup in bowls, pretend you are an elite barista, and swirl in some crème fraiche mixture making pictures of puppies, sunsets, star wars characters or whatever your inner barista-nerd desires, then add a little bundle of the fried leeks to the side and serve.
 
I like hard squash when SV'd. I buy it as needed but if I had an abundance I would rough dice, season lightly and bag and tag ready to drop then freeze it. I like thyme, s&p and a little butter in the bag. Layer about an inch deep in the bag and SV about an hour/185F. Finish with a brief high temp roast.
 
chefwp said:
What is this gorgeous looking squash killer? Nakiri Godzilla? Nakzilla?
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It was actually sold on Amazon under the title TOJIRO BIG ALMIGHTY KNIFE! IN ALL CAPS! WITH EXCLAMATION POINT! For under $30 delivered, heck of a deal by the yard.

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/big-almighty-knife-tojiro-fg-3000.41839/
It's a "melon knife". Does just what it says on the box, if you need to break down watermelon, this will do it. They sell an extra handle to clamp on blade spine at end away from handle, I didn't bother to buy it. Instead, I have a 100 year or so old lignum vitae shipyard caulking mallet and gently "baton" the spine if needed to get through a hard squash.

It came fairly sharp. I improved the edge a bit, it's made out of some kind of reasonably sharpenable stainless, I used it to cut some big hunks of meat before I got a purpose made slicer.

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Tonight I tried baking squash with shallots, olive oil & herbs.

Seeded, skinned and cut into about 1" cubes a (4.5 lb. while whole) "Uncle David's" squash, a buttercup type. Tossed squash with 1/3 cup good olive oil, 2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar, 4 large shallots cut into quarters and 4 large cloves of garlic sliced into thin pieces, about a heaping Tablespoon each of fresh minced sage and oregano plus about 1tsp. of fresh thyme leaves, 1 tsp. kosher salt, 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper.

Baked in a single layer in a large glass baking dish at 425° F for an hour. Got some caramelization on top, even with no sugar added was plenty sweet.

It was quite good...
 
juice said:
That's our main pumpkin type down here. I like it a lot, although I usually use the butternut when we use pumpkin (not that often as low-carb).
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I tend to see the pumpkin known as Kent (also known as Japanese) more often than butternut or Qld blues.
 
Tried pumpkin gnocci yesterday (silver spoon cookbook) - really enjoyed it but found it doesn't require all that much pumpkin (note that the recipe is wet due to the pumpkin and requires way more flour). Molten sage butter and ground parmigiano.

So here's another way to use more of 'em:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-decorative-gourd-season-mother****ers
 
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Grab some apples from the tree in the first pic + raisins + squash + crumb topping for a pie. (Canned pumpkin is usually just Hubbard squash anyhow.)

--Usually eat agro dolce a few times each winter:
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/winter-squash-agrodolce
--Used to eat a lot of squash and chicken enchiladas w/ mole too. Mole and squash go really well together.

Also like
--squash au gratin with thyme (has to be one of the dry/dense squashes), lots of parm
--roasted squash w/ sage and brown butter
--chicken roasted w/ squash, potatoes, and bacon

I imagine there're probably some nice German and N. Italian recipes for squash.
 
Apple trees, squash, pumpkins, flour corn and pole beans in my various pictures are growing in a 240 yard long row running North from the back side of the berm on a 300 yard rifle range (range South of berm, deer stand ON TOP of berm, more or less in center of this 540 yard long stretch, wildlife food plot & apple trees to North of berm).

I did bring in many of the apples for human use, left the less perfect ones for the deer who don't mind bird pecks or insect dammage... The apple trees are planted at 50 yard intervals starting at 100 yards going North from the deer stand, they serve as range reference points. Some local deer have ended up in a freezer shortly after snacking on those apples but at least they were shot very precisely, no range guestimation needed.
 
Did I mention the 8 explosives magazines, rated for 10,000 lb. net explosive quantity each?

I didn't talk about the ACTUAL orchard! With another 8 apple trees (5 varieties), 2 each of purple plum, pear and pie cherry.

And the two gardens mostly for human food.

And that I've seen coyotes, lynx, red fox, river otter and an honest to god WOLF PACK chasing deer right here. And had bald eagles eat my poor domestic ducks right in the orchard.

Some days it's like mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom" around here, wonderful. Other days, I may have to risk my life and go to Walmart where there are dangerous animals roaming freely.
 
juice said:
Interesting - they're a pretty small eagle, I thought they mostly ate fish and the like.
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They are opportunistic, when they are moving North in Spring, they are hungry and a flightless domestic duck is fat and easy pickings.

(Edit)
My ducks were much less work to catch than a wild one-
 
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My family likes squash roasted with salt, pepper, olive oil, maple syrup, and garlic. I think you could sub other sweeteners and aromatics for variety.
 
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