Camacho Watcho

Last fall I decided that I would take advantage of the bounty of squash available in the fall and winter. I did my research, cut out recipes, found a site that would provide guidance to the abundance of squash varieties…then I got busy with other things and abandoned the task. However, after resolving in the New Year to be a more conscious food consumer (more on that in a future post to come) and to look for local, seasonal ingredients (again, more to come), I thought now would be a good time to revisit my thoughts on squash.

At the co-op, I found a variety of locally grown winter squashes, beautiful with many colors, shapes and sizes. Some were nubby and others smooth. There were oranges, greens, yellows and blues. And they came in a variety of sizes, from extremely large to very small squash. But, none of them had labels. Hmmmm….interesting. But this did not deter me. I picked our four that looked interesting (I recognized the butternut squash, so I knew I was safe with at least that) and off I went.

At home, I did a little research and determined that I had bought a butternut (as I thought), an acorn squash, a delicata squash, and a mystery squash. You might not be familiar with the mystery squash…so I will explain. Or actually, let me provide a lack of explanation by saying that I couldn’t figure out what type of squash it was. I consulted two cookbooks and several sites online (none that had a picture of my squash), but the smallish, pale orange, smooth-skinned squash remained nameless.

Again, I was not to be deterred. I figured that most squash are pretty sweet, so I was safe just picking a winter squash recipe and going for it. I halved my mystery squash and removed the seeds, lightly salt and peppered it, put the halves cut side down on a lightly oiled jelly roll pan and stuck it in the oven at 375 degrees to roast for an hour.

When the hour was up, I pulled the browned, roasted halves out the oven and turned them over. And that was when I was met with a surprise…it was a spaghetti squash! Voila! If you’ve ever experienced a spaghetti squash, you know that it is quite distinct and interesting. The insides actually shred in thin strands, just like spaghetti. Fun! The only problem with this is that the spaghetti squash variety doesn’t have the signature sweet taste that I was hoping to use for my squash ravioli with sage butter recipe. I had to think quick and go to Plan B.

Plan B turned out to be melting a little butter in a sauce pan, adding a clove of chopped garlic and some fresh thyme and letting that soften for a bit. I then drizzled the garlic, thyme butter onto the squash halves and grated some fresh Parmiggiano-Reggiano on top. That went back into the oven for about 10 minutes to let the flavors blend. I served the squash halves with a salad of fresh greens, craisins, sunflower seeds, crumbled feta and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and olive oil on top. Add a couple chunks of fresh country bread and we were all set with dinner.

After all this, I’ve learned a couple lessons. First, while spaghetti squash is pretty tasty and fun to eat (with it’s individual strands and all), it’s not my favorite squash. I might have to try it again, but not until I’ve experimented with some other varieties. The second thing I learned was to use the following winter squash glossary. It was actually the site that I originally found and bookmarked last fall when I started thinking about squash. But when push came to shove, I completely forgot about it (Yup – see the picture of the spaghetti squash? That’s exactly what mine looked like…oops.) But not all was lost from this spaghetti squash surprise – we turned out a good meal and had a little adventure along the way.

Tags: Food, recipes

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.