Some tasty squash soup and my suspicious youngest daughter.
Mmm... homegrown squash made into a warming midwinter meal. Just imagine the aroma of pumpkins and spice wafting through the house. Thick chunks of bread liberally dunked with a nice glass of whatever you like to wet your pallette. A fire in the background and a good feeling inside that you have grown this bounty for your family...
... until reality hits and your children hop happily upstairs for a meal only to discover that it is something TASTY! I am borrowing this insult from a friend of mine's child. He does not eat tasty food. Tasty food is suspicious.
My youngest approached the chair with caution saying 'What is it, What is it,' over in and over in a slightly hysterical voice and then on hearing the answer says, 'Yech! I don't like squash. I wanted something good.' (not true - see evidence below) She poked it to see if it was alive maybe? A very small amount entered her mouth that was already screwed into a yucky face. She relaxes again. Wait, this isn't awful, not ice cream but not awful.
She finishes her meal and ask for seconds.
Here she is eating a RAW baby squash. Dirt, it seems, makes the best seasoning.
***
Winter squash is one of my favourite veggies to grow, not just because of it's dramatically large leaves that look like they are going to consume the rest of your garden, or the profusion of edible stuffable flowers, or the impressive ballooning of the fruit or even the delicious flavours in soups, pies, stews, pastas and so on, but because they are such an easy vegetable to store. Though some wash them after harvesting with a weak bleach solution and cure them for several weeks, I have yet to get around to doing that. Instead -
- I dust them off and stick them on a shelf in our dry, cool basement.
That's it. I've had squash, known for long storage, last easily until the new ones are harvested.
When I get the hankering for a pie or some fresh veg. in January, I take one off the shelf and enjoy cutting into the lush flesh. Since it's the seed gettin' time of year, may I recommend Waltham's Butternut if you are from around here. It performed well even in this poor year. I got my original stock from The Cottage Gardener.
More from me on Growing Squash
5 comments:
My daughter lives for when I make squash casserole (which is not quite as sweet as pumpkin pie, but similar). I made some last night and she ate half of it before she had to head back to school.
Usually I just store my squash in the kitchen and it lasts fine until spring when we move onto other things, but this year the squash we not very storage safe with the wet weather we had. What little I did try to keep, didn't. This year I cooked it all up in the fall and froze the puree. It worked great. I might do this in good squash years too since it is so easy to think of pie and have the squash already cooked.
Oh gasp! Tasty food, how could you be such a horrible mother :0 I wish my mom had foisted such things upon me.
Winter squash is a favorite of mine also, love to grow it, eat it, display it. Butternut is so good but I've not tried the Waltham variety, I'll have to keep that in mind for another year. This year I'm growing one of my old favorites, Marina di Chioggia.
Yum. I think I have squash soup on the menu for lunch this week. Ours lives in the basement happily.
I can second your butternut recommendation. I think I'm only going to grow that and an Italian pumpkin (plus maybe some halloween type carving ones) this year. No sense wasting space.
I heard squash bugs do not bother butternut squash, is that true? If so I may try to grow couple plants.
My son finally ate squash this year and loved it. (He asked why I hadn't made him years ago... I had, but it seems he had forgotten.) It took only 17 years to get him to try it. I love it and make it regularly. I especially love stuffing and baking squash. The scent while baking is so good.
Post a Comment