Showing posts with label Squash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Squash. Show all posts
With the Canadian Thanksgiving coming up this next weekend, I have been testing a few side dishes to see what might or might not work. I love, LOVE butternut squash.
For me it just would not be Thanksgiving without squash of some sort. I spied a recipe on Healthie Foodie the other day for a butternut squash roasted in the oven.
.JPG "Oven Roasted Butternut Squash")
I wanted to try it because it was deemed healthy. We have enough calories that we will be splurging on during our holiday celebration, so I thought a healthy side would not go amiss.
I love roasting vegetables. It seems to bring out and enhance their natural sweetness. Usually when a vegetable has been roasted there is no need to add anything else into the mix. Their natural flavors shine!
.JPG "Oven Roasted Butternut Squash")
My mother always cooked squash to go along with our Thanksgiving dinners. I confess. I did NOT like it. It was my least favorite of all the holiday dishes.
I think she just boiled it, and it was pretty blah. Watery and blah. Sorry Mom! Mom cooked a lot of wonderful things. Squash was not one of them!
.JPG "Oven Roasted Butternut Squash")
The roasting of the squash like this keeps it nice and sweet and dry. There is no need to peel the squash or even to cut it up. Just cutting it in half is all you need to do.
It roasts pretty much dry, with only touch of olive oil and seasoning, and the merest hint of water to keep it from burning.
This results in nicely caramelized edges, which only add to the sweetness and flavor of the squash. I love, LOVE that this is such a simple thing to do.
.JPG "Oven Roasted Butternut Squash")
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE OVEN ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH
It's simple, really. I love recipes like this that don't require a bazillion ingredients.
- 1 medium to large butternut squash
- 3 to 4 TBS olive oil
- salt and black pepper, a generous sprinkle of each
- 1/4 cup (60ml) water
.JPG "Oven Roasted Butternut Squash")
My squash was only a smallish one, because there is only me. I will be doing a much larger one for Thanksgiving. The original recipe called for extra virgin olive oil.
To me that was a bit of a waste. I never use extra virgin olive oil for cooking. I use light olive oil for cooking.
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. You can't get much simpler than that!
HOW TO COOK OVEN ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH
The hardest part of this is cutting the squash in half. Winter squashes can be quite hard, so do use a sharp knife and take great care when cutting it.
A dull knife is a dangerous tool requiring much more pressure to cut through a hard vegetable. One slip of the knife and you can very easily injure yourself because of the extra pressure required.
.JPG "Oven Roasted Butternut Squash")
Preheat the oven to 375*F/190*C/ gas mark 5. Line a medium sized baking sheet (with a lip) with some aluminum foil. Set aside.
Wash the squash, remove the stem end and then cut in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and discard. Place onto the baking sheet, cut sides up.
Drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Flip over so that the cut sides are down. Pour the water into the pan.
Roast in the preheated oven, uncovered, for 40 to 45 minutes, checking periodically to make sure that the squash has not started to burn. You do want the water to evaporate, however. Add a bit more water if your squash is getting too dark.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool until you can handle it safely. Scoop out the flesh with a spoon into a bowl or casserole.
Serve as is, or mash completely with a fork. You can add a knob of butter if you wish, but I think it tastes pretty good just the way it is.
The squash is done when it can be pierced easily with the tip of a sharp knife.
.JPG "Oven Roasted Butternut Squash")
Seriously all you will have to throw away is a very thin piece of skin. There is literally no waste here. I didn't add anything to the squash at all and it was delicious!
Why wash the squash you ask? Well, I always wash my vegetables even if I am not going to be eating the skin, and especially if I am going to be cutting it in half like this.
If there is any germs on the outside like manure etc. cutting it without washing it means that you are going to slide the germs right down into the cut edges of the vegetable. Maybe I am being a bit pedantic, but hey ho. That's me!
.JPG "Oven Roasted Butternut Squash")
You could of course add a knob of butter if you are craving a bit more richness and a TBS of soft light brown sugar would also be nice, maybe a grating of nutmeg, but then, I am adding to the calories eh!
I want to keep the calories down so I can enjoy more of that rich gravy from the turkey, not to mention the stuffing and the mashed potatoes!
Oh, I do so love a Turkey dinner! Don't you? This needn't be reserved just for Thanksgiving, however. This would make a fabulous side dish anytime!
.JPG "Oven Roasted Butternut Squash")
MASHED POTATO SQUASH - This one is cooked in the microwave and is delicious. Mashed potato squash is a dry fleshed squash with a nice mild flavor.
MAPLE & BUTTER BAKED SQUASH - One of the most delicious ways to bake those tiny squashes. Simply cut in half, deseed and then apply some seasoning, butter and maple syrup. Easy and oh so tasty!
Oven Roasted Butternut Squash
Yield: 4
Prep time: 5 MinCook time: 45 MinTotal time: 50 Min
Such a simple thing to do and yet so delicious. Roasting brings out the natural sweetness of the squash. No fuss. No muss.
Ingredients
- 1 medium to large butternut squash
- 3 to 4 TBS olive oil
- salt and black pepper, a generous sprinkle of each
- 1/4 cup (60ml) water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375*F/190*C/ gas mark 5. Line a medium sized baking sheet (with a lip) with some aluminum foil. Set aside.
- Wash the squash, remove the stem end and then cut in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and discard. Place onto the baking sheet, cut sides up.
- Drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Flip over so that the cut sides are down. Pour the water into the pan.
- Roast in the preheated oven, uncovered, for 40 to 45 minutes, checking periodically to make sure that the squash has not started to burn. You do want the water to evaporate, however. Add a bit more water if your squash is getting too dark.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool until you can handle it safely. Scoop out the flesh with a spoon into a bowl or casserole.
- Serve as is, or mash completely with a fork. You can add a knob of butter if you wish, but I think it tastes pretty good just the way it is.
- The squash is done when it can be pierced easily with the tip of a sharp knife.
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One thing I am really loving about being back in Canada is the huge variety of Winter squashes which are available for cooking.
In the UK, we basically had one. Butternut Squash. Don't get me wrong, I adore Butternut Squash, but I also love other types of Winter squash, and its nice to have a variety to choose from!
Squash was not something which I really enjoyed when I was growing up. My mother only had one way of cooking it, boiling.
And, as they did in them there days, she boiled it to death. I think most vegetables had the life boiled out of them!
In any case, mom boiled the squash and I could take it or leave it. It was always too squishy and lacking in flavor. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Winter squash is one of those vegetables, however, whose flavor is greatly enhanced when you use other method to cook it. Like roasting for instance.
Roasting Winter squash really heightens the sweetness of them as well as the natural nuttiness. Well, most Winter squashes anyways.
Long about this time of year I start looking at contenders to serve as side dishes for my Thanksgiving feast. In Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving in October, which is a month earlier than they do in the United States.
I have my favorites, dishes that I do every year and always do the same, such as the swede, potatoes, carrots and stuffing. But sometimes I like to switch out the others a bit if I can.
My favorite way of roasting my turkey will always be my Herb Roasted Turkey, and that applies whether it is a breast/crown or the whole beast.
For me, turkey doesn't get much better than that, and the gravy that you end up with at the end is magnificent.
My favorite stuffing is Mary Berry's Sage & Onion Stuffing. Stuffing just could not be any more delicious than this one.
Its a beautiful mix of butter, herbs and bread, stuffing perfection. For me the best part of the meal is always the stuffing, and this one does not let you down. not ever!
All the other sides I like to play with a bit and love trying out new ways of preparing them. This recipe for Roasted Winter Squash with Garlic & Thyme comes from a cookery book by Diana Henry, entitled "Pure Simple Cooking."
It is filled with lots of lovely simple recipes for cooking everything from soup to nuts. This was one of the sides in the book and the photograph for it had me drooling.
I love dishes like this that use simple ingredients and very few of them. Things that most people have in their homes most of the time.
And this recipe does just that. Its simple and almost pure in what it requires and how it is cooked.
WHAT YOU NEED TO COOK ROASTED WINTER SQUASH WITH GARLIC & THYME
Other than the squash which you may have to go out and buy, you will probably have most everything else already in your kitchen.
- Winter Squash
- Olive oil
- Butter
- Thyme
- Garlic
- Seasoning
What I love most about roasting things like this is that you get all of that beautiful caramelization on the edges of the vegetables. Nutty and brown and slightly sticky.
HOW TO HANDLE WINTER SQUASH
The hardest part of this recipe is probably cutting the squash in half and scooping out the seeds. Some winter squashes can be extremely hard and difficult to cut in half. Here are some of my tips which will make that process a bit easier.
1. Use a large, sharp, heavy duty knife. This is no time to break out the paring knives. You want to bring out the big guns for this, and do make sure it is really sharp. A dull knife is a dangerous tool in the kitchen.
2. Trim off both ends of the squash first, the stem end and the root/blossom end. You are not going to be eating those parts, and trimming these off will give you a bit of stabilization. In other words, your squash should stay better in place while you are cutting with no rolling around.
3. Cut vertically through the squash. This just makes sense and allows for better shapes when it comes to portioning it than if you were to cut it horizontally. If your knife gets a bit stuck, use something to lightly hammer the back handle of the knife, like a mallet.
4. Peel with a knife and not a vegetable peeler. Using a paring knife gives you much better control. Squashes come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. For this recipe she left the skin on the squash for roasting, but I will tell you that when I make it again, I am definitely peeling it. Its a lot easier to eat with the peel already removed.
5. The easiest way to scoop out the stringy bits and seeds is with a melon baller. You could also use a grapefruit spoon. They just make a messy job a whole lot easier.
That is just a few tips to help make cutting your squash a tiny bit easier. Above all use caution! We don't want anyone slicing off their fingers!
You will need to cut your squash into 3/4 inch wide slices for this recipe. Diana did not peel her squash and neither did I, but if I made it again, it is important to note that I would peel it.
I found it quite difficult to remove the peels when eating it. At least they were with this particular squash.
Diana also thinly sliced peeled garlic and scattered it over the roasted squash wedges for the last 15 minutes of roasting. Personally, if I do this again, I am going to leave the garlic cloves whole and unpeeled.
I will give them a slight bashing to crack them, but I plan on putting them in with the squash right from the get go. That way you will end up with lovely roasted cloves of garlic, in which case you may even want to use more than six cloves.
Roasted garlic is beautifully mellow and not at all harsh. I could find nothing totally redeeming about thinly slicing it.
It was cooked, but there was none of that beautiful sticky mellowness that you get from roasting whole cloves. And if I am going to use that many cloves of garlic I would prefer it to be a bit more than a garnish that isn't even all that attractive.
Just a suggestion on my part.
In any case, with my suggested changes, this could very well be a contender for a side dish for my Thanksgiving feast. I will probably only have my daughter and son in law here, so not a huge crowd.
My first Thanksgiving on Canadian soil in over 20 years. If that isn't a cause for a celebration, and a great excuse to pull out all the stops, I don't know what is!
Roasted Squash with Garlic & Thyme
Yield: 6 as a side
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 45 MinTotal time: 55 Min
You want to use the sweeter varieties of squash for this recipe. Butternut, Buttercup, Kabucha. All work really well.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds of winter squash (wash well)
- ¼ cup (60ml) olive oil
- 2 TBS butter
- 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375*F/190*C/ gas mark 5.
- Halve the squash and scoop out the fibers and seeds in the middle. (you can save these, wash them off, dry and use them to plant more squash next year!)
- Cut the squash into ¾ inch slices (at the thickest part of each wedge).
- Place the butter and olive oil on a rimmed baking sheet. Pop into the oven and heat gently until the butter begins to foam. (about 5 minutes) Remove from the oven. Carefully add the squash slices, turning them to coat them in the butter/oil mixture. Pull the leaves from the thyme and scatter them over top, along with a goodly seasoning of salt and pepper.
- Return the squash to the oven and roast for a further 20 to 25 minutes, turning them every so often.
- Scatter the garlic slices over top and roast for a further 15 minutes until the squash pieces are soft and slightly caramelized.
A few weeks back my sister and I picked up some Winter squashes at a farmer's market a bit further on up the valley from where we live. They had a huge variety of squashes available, ranging from every colour, shape and size under the sun.
I bought a mash potato squash and a sweet potato squash and a spaghetti squash. My two potato type of squashes were, the mash potato squash the size of a small bowling ball, and the sweet potato squash a similar weight and size (except it is elongated) and my spaghetti squash was roughly twice the size of the other two.
I had never cooked or eaten any of these squashes before, but I love squash in general and I was intrigued by the names. You can read about my experience in cooking the Mash Potato Squash here.
My sister had also bought several squashes, including the same types and she cooked the sweet potato squash one Sunday for with our dinner.
In general we discovered that both of these squashes have a very dry texture when cooked. This lends them beautifully towards mashing, or roasting, without having to drain off much liquid.
Their flavors were also quite mild, or bland, which meant that they would be beautiful when mixed together with other ingredients. We added butter and Maple syrup along with some seasoning to the sweet potato squash.
I treated the mash potato squash just like potato and simply mashed it together with some butter and seasoning. I thought it was delicious that way.
Today I got to thinking what if I really decided to treat it like a potato. I love adore twice baked potatoes.
When we were growing up, it was always a real treat if our mother made twice baked potatoes. Or stuffed baked potatoes, and it was the same when my own family was growing up.
We all love stuffed baked potatoes, be they as simple as just mashing the insides with some milk, butter, onion and seasoning and stuffing the insides back into the skin and re-baking, or if we got really fancy and added things like cheese and leeks and such!
I also make a really delicious Twice Baked Mashed Potato Casserole. Twice Baked Mashed Potatoes is the perfect size for two people to enjoy and makes great use of store cupboard ingredients, or even leftover mashed potatoes.
Mashed potatoes, crumbled cooked bacon, minced chives, sour cream, cream cheese . . . a bit of cheddar on top. Its really yummy! 😋😋😋
Anyways the wheels in my head started turning and I thought to myself . . . what if I applied the same techniques to the mash potato squash? What indeed!
The result is this fabulously tasty casserole dish that I am sharing with you today for Twice Baked Squash Casserole! This was delicious!
It boasts all of the elements of the mashed potato casserole with the exception of cream cheese. I didn't have any, but you can add some if you wish. About 1/4 cup, or 1 ounce, would be perfect.
I also didn't use chives this time, I used finely sliced spring onions, or scallions as they are also called. They are also known as green onions.
Other than that everything else was pretty much the same. I did not add milk or buttermilk because I didn't want the mixture to be sloppy. Mashed winter squash is slightly wetter than mashed potatoes, but not much.
But I knew adding milk would be going overboard, so don't be tempted. I also didn't add any butter and it didn't need it.
Bacon bits, sour cream, spring onions, cheese and some seasoning is all I needed to add. The squash itself was nice and nutty, with some golden brown bits from the oven roasting.
It mashed beautifully and was lovely and dry, perfect for this application. I simply stirred everything together and banged it into a small casserole dish topping it with some more cheese and bacon bits.
It baked up beautifully in the oven. Nice and golden brown. I used a mix of cheddars, both white and orange, sharp cheddar. Double cheddar. Double tasty. Double nice.
Out of the oven, I sprinkled a few more chopped spring onions on top as a garnish. This was gorgeous. It made a beautiful side dish for the roast chicken and green beans I was also having.
I could have very easily eaten a whole plate of this and nothing else! It was that good!! I think I found a new favorite way to serve winter squash!
What is your favorite way to cook winter squash??? Do you have a favorite winter squash? Any winter squashes you avoid? Why is that? I really want to know! Lets talk!
Twice Baked Squash Casserole
Yield: 3
Prep time: 5 MinCook time: 1 H & 5 MTotal time: 1 H & 10 M
This was a little something I came up with to use a mash potato squash that I had. You will need a squash that has a dry firm texture, not wet. Buttercup, Hubbard, Mash Potato and Sweet Potato Squashes all work well for this recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 dry squash (1 1/2 - 2 pounds in weight) (I used mash potato squash)
- 1/4 cup (30g) sour cream
- 1/2 cup (60g) grated strong cheddar cheese, divided
- 3 TBS real bacon bits
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 3 spring onions, washed, trimmed and thinly sliced, divided
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350*F/189*C/ gas mark 4. Cut your squash in half and scoop out the seeds, discarding them.
- Place the squash halves, cut side down on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Roast in the preheated oven until tender. (Mine took about 40 minutes.)
- Remove from the oven, turn cut side up, and leave to sit for about 15 minutes, or until you can comfortably handle the squash.
- Scoop the flesh out into a bowl, discarding the skin. Season to taste with salt and pepper, remembering that cheese and bacon are both salty ingredients, so be judicious with the salt. Mash together with 3/4 of the cheese, 2 TBS of the bacon bits and 2/3 of the spring onions.
- Spoon this mixture into a 2-cup (1 pint) buttered casserole dish. Sprinkle the remaining cheese and bacon bits over top.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown and heated through.
- Sprinkle the remaining spring onions on top and serve.
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