Things to do with Squash: Two Recipes, Sweet and Savory

Long live recession recipes!

Every other Tuesday, Capay Organic delivers our organic fruits and vegetables.  This week, we received the most enormous butternut squash we’ve ever seen, easily twice the size of a butternut squash that we’d normally say was “large.”  This butternut squash was larger than the largest spaghetti squash we’ve ever seen. That’s a lot of squash.

I’ve had holiday pies on the brain so I decided to make two at the same time, one sweet and the other savory.  The savory one turned into more of a casserole, as I made more filling than a pie pan could hold.  Here are my two recipes, the savory one brand new and just made up yesterday.  I’m proud of this, since we’re really working on avoiding waste and making a lot of food with what we have in the house.  It really has lowered our food costs.

I used Alton Brown’s pie dough recipe and just doubled it for two pies.  I left out part where Alton cooks the pie crust, since I baked the pies then and there.  It’s definitely the best pie crust recipe I’ve ever used.  Win!

For both recipes, you’ll need to roast the squash first.  This is nice because you can do other things while it roasts.

First, roast the squash:

• Preheat over to 400 degrees Fareheit.
• Cut the squash in half lengthwise.  Remove any seeds with a fork.
• Using an olive oil non-stick spray, or just olive oil and a pastry brush, lightly coat the inside halves of the squash.  
• Place both halves of the squash face down (i.e. exterior shell facing up and inside guts facing down) on a baking sheet.  
• Using a fork, lightly poke holes in the exterior shell of the squash.  This allows some steam to escape and will help the squash cool faster after roasting.
• Depending on the size of the squash, remove from the over after 40-60 minutes (our enormous squash took a full hour to roast; yours will probably take more like 35-45 minutes).
• Let the squash cool completely (I think we allowed a couple of hours for this while we ran errands).
• After the squash has cooled, use an ice cream scoop to easily remove the squash.

Butternut Squash Pie 
This is our family recipe for pumpkin pie.  I just used butternut squash instead.  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

• 1 1/2 cups pureed squash (Remove 1 1/2 cups from a roasted squash with an ice cream scoop, per above, and pulse in a food processor, or use a food grinder, until pureed).
• 1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed (If you want to go low-glycemic for this recipe, as we often do, use date sugar. The molasses flavor of cooked date sugar works really well in this recipe and is a perfect all-natural substitute for brown sugar.)
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup half-and-half  (I only had heavy cream and 2% milk on hand, so I used 1/2 cup 2% milk and 1/4 cup heavy cream to get my 3/4 cup.  It worked great.)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used my coffee grinder to grind fresh cinnamon sticks we had.)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (Just use a cheese grater if you have whole nutmeg on hand.)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground fresh ginger (You can also use a grater for this.)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon melted butter
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla or vanilla extract

Beat the squash and brown (or date) sugar together until fully blended.  Add everything else and beat for a minute or two until fully blended.  Pour the mixture into your pie crust.

Bake on center oven rack at 350 degrees Farenheit until fully set (not mushy or moving around when you move the pie pan) for 45-55 minutes (I’ve never needed less than 55 minutes).

Remove pie after 30-35 minutes and cover the crust with foil to avoid burning.

Cool completely before serving.  Serve with fresh whipped cream (the rest of a small carton of the heavy cream we had on hand, plus a TBsp of sugar, whipped in a chilled bowl).

Squash and Venison Casserole
Spray a medium sized casserole dish (10″ in diameter or close to it) with non-stick olive oil spray, or just use a paper towel to lightly wipe olive oil around the inside of the dish.  Line the casserole dish with the pie crust you made (make sure you rolled it pretty thin).  Reserve a small amount of pie dough to weave across the top. 

Casserole Filling

• 1 pound ground venison (That’s what we happened to have in the freezer.  You can also use ground buffalo, lamb or beef – and you could probably leave the meat out and do a vegetarian version instead).
• 1 1/2 cups squash (Mashing it with a fork is fine; the squash doesn’t need to be pureed for this and will cook down quickly to a softer texture.)
• 2 large carrots, diced
• 4 medium sized potatoes, diced
• 2 large leeks, chopped fine (or three small) (That’s also what we had on hand.  You can just use a regular onion or two.)
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander
• Salt and pepper to taste
• We also added a simple roux to this mix to create some gravy so you’ll need ingredients for that if you’d like.  You can also make any gravy recipe you like that’s suitable (i.e. chicken or beef based is probably best here), or a dry mix gravy if that’s your thing.  We just thought the ingredients looked a little dry without gravy. You may or may not agree.

Now that you’ve chopped cathartically:

• In a large skillet (these chopped veggies pile up), heat the olive oil and garlic over medium high heat.  When warm..
• Brown the venison in the olive oil and garlic.
• Add the cumin and coriander, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• When browned, add the carrots.  Stir.  Wait a few minutes.
• Add the leeks (or onions) and celery.  Add a pinch of salt.  Stir.  Wait a few minutes.
• Add the potatoes.  Stir.  Wait a few minutes.  The potatoes won’t cook fully here, but they shouldn’t.  They’ll cook more in the oven later and prevent the pie from becoming too soggy.
• Add the squash.  Stir.  Wait a few minutes.
• Season with a little more salt and pepper.  Some of you may wish to add a little more cumin (we like cumin).
• If you’re adding a gravy, add it now.  Stir.  Wait a few minutes. 
• Pour the entire mixture into the dough-lined casserole dish.  Weave a few extra pieces across the top.  Brush the top pieces of dough lightly with olive oil or butter.
• Bake at 400 degrees for 45-60 minutes.  We covered our casserole dish for about 25% of the cooking time. 
• Cool for a few minutes, scoop out, and serve.

We had this with scrambled eggs and cider for a late lunch/early dinner.  It was great!  We’ve also made enough food for about four meals for two people with things we had in the house.