Hi, friends!
How is your Sunday going? Having a decent day?
I was at the farmer’s market yesterday and the good squashes are coming in!
Good squashes are things besides summer squash. I guess there’s something to do with pattypan squashes and yellow squash, and I can enjoy zucchini prepared in several ways. But the cucurbita family truly shines with the winter squashes and they are far superior.
It got me thinking about how fresh winter squashes and apples are my mental trigger for “OMG it’s AUTUMN.” Not pumpkin spice lattes, but that’s really because I don’t drink coffee so they’re not on my menu.
Anyways, this NOT brought to you by my decision to buy a few pounds of Jonathan apples, 2 spaghetti squash, a butternut squash, and a lovely delicata squash. Can you tell I like winter squashes? I’ve already roasted the butternut and delicata and will make a casserole with the spaghetti squash later in the week. 🙂
What foods and drinks tell your brain it’s Autumn?
Also, please enjoy this educational video about how to combine butternut squash and hinges.
I like summer squashes because, provided you pick ripe ones, they taste fantastic when simply sautéed with olive oil, garlic, onions or shallots, and salt + pepper. That said, autumn and winter squashes are far more exciting. My favourite is delicata, which needs only to be cut in half lengthwise, hollowed out, and sliced into half-moon shapes before being roasted. It’s so naturally flavourful and sweet. I also love roasted kabocha squash. You can get away with minimal prep and it does just fine. A former flat mate used to buy a whole one, pole a few holes in it, and toss the whole damn thing on a baking sheet. Damn good.
Unless I’m already using the oven, typically I just sauté when I cook delicatas because they’re so easy to make on the stove.
I haven’t had kabocha squash yet, I recall trying to get one last fall and the only place I could find them was the grocery store and they looked crappy compared to the butternuts.
Fall foods for me:
Roasted Cauliflower (not a big fan, but my mom shoves it on the family during fall.)
Roasted Squash
Broiled Fish (usually mackerel)
Gungjung Tteokbokki (Korean big rice noodles (Garaetteok) wok fried in soya sauce with veg and some beef.)
Miyeok Guk (beef seaweed soup) a Korean staple. Mom makes several large batches over the fall/winter.
Formerly Gangjang Gejang because crabs aren’t very good or common anymore thanks to overfishing. For those not familiar with Korean (including me) it is raw crabs pickled in soya sauce. I miss it, but the last ones we had weren’t all that good.
My dad barbecues year round, which is good because cauliflower wrapped in foil with some olive oil and garlic cloves and shoved on a bb
(apparently I hit enter by accident mid word_
ANYWAYS
shoved on a bbq pit and cooked that way is far superior to roasted. Roasted isn’t bad, but smoked is waaaaay better.
I didn’t pick them up this time, but my farmers market has started carrying turnips. Roasted turnips and onions are great fall food.
Nice! I haven’t seen turnips yet, although I do see turnip greens at the market.
– Soups, esp. bisques
– Dark beers, red wine
– Mexican or dark chocolate cafe mochas
– Cheese fondue or baked brie
– Fresh out of the oven Irish soda bread
– Smoked meats
Yesssss I love soup season
For some reason I associate pork with autumn, especially pork chops and sausages. I know that a lot of you associate pork with “do not eat ever” but not this amoral glutton.
Though it is not yet Fall and the temps were a little warm I made Ed Asner’s Pork Chops in Sour Cream last night, as the kind of finale to my All-Star Celebrity Cook-off weekend. They were simple and very tasty and I can see doing this for one person. You lightly sear them, put them in a baking dish, create a kind of simple vinagrette to pour over them, and leave them in the oven for 1 hour. That’s the pain in the neck part. Then, when they’re done, you remove the chops (or, in my case, the lonesome chop, but I bought a big one so I could share with The Ravenous Beast) and add the pan drippings to a little sour cream and that is the sauce.
Beloved Ed Asner died recently (at 91) so I did this in memory of him.
My pre-dinner cocktail was a Greyhound (Tyne Daly’s favorite) which is just vodka and grapefruit juice but it’s been a while since I had had one. Then with dinner I had some Chardonnay, which I ex post facto got away with by learning that Christina Ricci, too, is a big fan.
Of course, the real expert is Mr. Autumn Man.
https://www.theonion.com/mr-autumn-man-walking-down-street-with-cup-of-coffee-1819574012
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/mr-autumn-man-onion-erik-adams
@MegMegMcGee
A propos of nothing I was reading the Takeout today (or yesterday, as it now is.) They’re recycling a lot of content via slideshows. They reprinted one from 2019 and much to my delight I found that you and I had both left comments! It was about making pigs in a blanket using sausage stuffing.
For me, foraging-wise, it’s the wild grapes, plums, and chokecherries.
Drinks-wise, apple ciders & (hot) spiced chai lattes (iced in the warm months, hot in the cool ones😉)… also hot cocoa with OBSCENE amounts of whipped cream (from a can!), and some mini-marshmallows, too.
And ALL the squashes–butternut, buttercup, acorn, turban (which is basically just like buttercup in flavor), and the granddaddy & grail of all the squashes–the BEST one you can get-*if* you can FIND it—
The Blue Hubbard
My grandpa grew some when I was little, but until…. was it 5-ish years ago? I hadn’t had it since…
Then, that year, I found pieces of them*** for sale at “the fancy grocery store” (a local high-end chain).
They were ridiculously expensive (iirc $7.99/lb or so)… buuuuuut I decided to splurge, because it had been a few decades & I couldn’t remember if the blue hubbards really were that much better, or if I was remembering incorrectly…
Well,the memory WAS right, the Blue was tastier than all the other squashes I adored, and I’ve snagged them every time I could, ever since😉
The second one i found was ridiculous–iirc, a 20-pounder, but one that I got for $3.00 at the Mpls Farmers’ market😉
And then *last* year, I managed tofind some “babies” (running only 8#-10# each!😆🤣), at one of the local Fresh Thyme markets😁
They’re an absolutebearbug to get into–if you have a good, small, sharp hatchet/machete/cleaver, I’d honestly recommend that you use THAT!
As it is, I tend to either try to drop (slam/throw) it onto a plastic-covered garage floor, to get it cracked… OR take my biggest chef’s knife & some sort of mallet to get a crack started–THEN drop it onto a (clean!) floor from about chest high, until it gets a big enough crack to break it open…
Then I hack it into chunks that will fit onto a couple cookie sheets, clean off the “guts,” oil/salt/pepper it up, and roast it until the flesh is soft & can be scooped off the skin…
Since there WILL be a ton of mashed squash, I divide it out into plastic bags, then freeze those for later use.
Some will get reheated w/butter & brown sugar, some will make a curried soup, and other will simply be warmed with some butter.
***this makes COMPLETE sense, once you understand that a *single* Blue Hubbard can weigh 20+ lbs easily!