This glorious hint of fall has turned my mind to soups and wholesome hearty meals of winter squash. Sadly, I lost my winter squash plants, which I started in April, to the bugs before they had a chance to produce. Fortunately, while I’m not producing them, they’re just coming into the market now — butternuts, acorns, Lakotas, blue Hubbards, sweet dumplings, buttercups, delicatas, spaghetti squashes, and more. Their multi-hued skins conceal rich buttery flesh that lends itself to a wealth of recipes. Curried butternut soup is a great weekday meal with salad and wholegrain muffins. For a delicious side dish that’s filled with nutrients, you can sauté it with sage and shallots and a little cider or with ancho peppers, mustard seed and garlic. Or stuff acorn squash with walnuts, apples, a little orange peel, and dried cranberries that have been plumped in Pama, or bake a rich custard into little sweet dumpling squash and drizzle it with maple syrup for dessert. Winter squash are great for pies, cakes and muffins — you can bake on Sundays with the kids, then stick the results in the freezer and stuff their lunches with something that they’ll love and that will make you feel good all week.
Winter squash, a member of the Cucurbitae family that includes melons and cucumbers, is called that not because we harvest them in winter, but because many have very dry flesh and as a result store so wonderfully so we can eat them all winter. (I once grew a 15-pound blue hubbard that I harvested in October and we ate in late May). Not only that, they are packed with beta carotene (Vitamin A, critical to eyes and other body parts), Vitamin C, and potassium among others, and retain as much as 85% of their nutritional value over months of storage. (Generally speaking, the darker the flesh, the harder the shell, the longer it stores and the more nutrients it retains.).
Winter squash are theoretically easy to grow. You stick the plant in the ground in about June and harvest between 90 and 120 days later, depending on variety. In my experience here, they are squash bug magnets. If you don’t catch those suckers early and crush ‘em – or regularly squirt them off plants with soapy spray (but crushing is better and infinitely more satisfying) you won’t have winter squash.
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