The beautiful Butternut

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Winter squash, like Butternut, Delicata, Sunshine, Spaghetti, and Kabocha, have been finding their way into our CSA shares and farmers market trips lately.  I’ve had lots of Butternut, in particular.  In the past couple of weeks, I’ve roasted at least three of them.

I do prefer Butternut roasted, no matter what I’m doing with it - it’s just easier to peel that way.  Peeling and chopping uncooked Butternut is hard work, and I like to take the easy way out whenever possible!  To roast a Winter squash, just preheat your oven to 400 degrees, cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and roast (cut side down) for about 20 minutes or so.

Some of my Butternut was cubed and frozen.  Some of it was used immediately.  Like in this soup I made last week…

There’s nothing quite like soup to use up all your extra produce!  And temperatures were cool enough around here last week to actually make some soup.  The soup contains Butternut squash, onions, and swiss chard from my CSA share, tomatoes from my garden, and some homemade chicken stock I made last month from a local chicken.  I also used some non-local parmesan rinds to flavor the soup up a bit.  It was delicious!

Tonight for dinner, I made Butternut and mushroom bread pudding.  A lot of people are familiar with sweet bread puddings, but hardly anyone traffics in savory bread pudding.  It’s a lot like bread stuffing, and is a great way to use up whatever veggies you’ve got lying around the house.  In this case, there was a Butternut from last week’s CSA share, and some mushrooms from Mother Earth Mushrooms in West Grove.  In fact, everything I used for the bread pudding was local, except the parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.

3 cups Butternut squash, roasted and cubed
1 c. sliced mushrooms
1 tsp olive oil
1 c. chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
2 c. milk
1 c. aged parmesan, shredded
salt and pepper
3 large eggs
2 large egg whites
9 c. day old bread, torn up into bite-sized pieces (I used Le Bus brioche)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Saute onion, garlic, and mushrooms for about five minutes.  Remove from heat and cool slightly.

Combine 1/4 tsp salt, a pinch of pepper, milk, 1/2 c. cheese, eggs and whites; whisk lightly.  Stir in squash and onion mixture.  Add bread and stir gently to combine.  Let stand 10 minutes.  Spoon into a large baking dish coated with cooking spray or butter.  Sprinkle with remaining cheese.  Bake for 45 minutes.

This is some great comfort food and makes excellent leftovers!