Turkey Tracks: December 14, 2012
Roasting and Cooking the Blue Hubbard Squash
Remember the Blue Hubbard Squash I grew and wrote about back in October?
Well, I roasted it this week.
The temperature had been dropping, and I had the squash stored in the garage so they could keep on “sugaring off.” Temps were low enough that I was afraid that the garlic and the squashes would freeze in the garage–so everything came inside.
John cut last year’s Blue Hubbard, which I bought for about $8, out in the garage–a place of mystery to me. This year I was on my own. And let me tell you, it took the BIG French knife, lots of muscle, and lots of patience. I could only get the knife into one side at once. Eventually, I was able to pry it open.
I scooped out the seeds and pulp and took them out to the chickens, who ooed and ahhed. The smell of the squash was so clean and sweet. The flesh was bright, intense orange.
Each half took up the whole of one of my big baking pans and both filled the whole of the oven. It took about 90 minutes to roast them completely.
Here are the halves, flipped over and ready to have the roasted flesh scooped out.
This one squash made an enormous amount of cooked filling. I put serving sizes into plastic bags and froze them–reserving about 4 cups for that night’s dinner–pan fried local ham steak, sauteed baby bok choy (with fresh ginger and our garlic), and the Blue Hubbard squash. (Fall is the traditional time for “putting up” pork raised over the summer–and a pork ham takes a bit of time to smoke, so big ham slices are now filling the local coops.)
I placed the roasted squash for dinner into a saucepan with a cover–added about 1/4 cup of our local raw butter, a big dollop of our local raw heavy cream, a splash of our local maple syrup, a pinch of sea salt, and about a teaspoon of Penzy’s cinnamon. I put the mixture on low heat and went back after a bit to stir it all up. It was smooth and incredibly sweet–I hardly needed the maple syrup in the mixture.
Delicious!
Louisa Enright's Blog 