Friday 14 October 2011

Butternut Harvest.


Nights are getting cooler, and for a vegetable gardener there's nothing worse than having crops ruined by unexpected frost (not that we're expecting any quite yet).

So, I've begun to bring in the Butternut Squash crop. I seem to have gone overboard this year, and have at least another TWO barrow-loads to harvest. Luckily both Lady M and myself adore Butternuts, so we'll get through quite a few.... but we've got mountains of them.

They all need a good clean, then stocking in a frost proof environment. This way we should still be eating them until about March next year.

My four main Butternut uses are in soup, roasted with chicken, added to Moroccan style tagines, and puréed with potato. Any other interesting uses will be gratefully received.
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16 comments:

  1. Hi Cro...what a great harvest!!! to make your soup do you cut them in half with full cloves of garlic in the seed space,then roast in the oven,when it is soft remove all the flesh and squeeze the garlic out and whiz together with some stock for a roasted flavoured soup?thats our favourite,a lovely dollop of cream makes a nice finish..and of course Aussies love pumkin scones..yumm.

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  2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/nov/04/recipes.cheese?INTCMP=SRCH

    This link shows a recipe that Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall nicked from a friend which is on of my favourites. All three variants have been tried and tested many times

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  3. Thanks LG. That sounds like one that'll have to wait till I light our wood-fired oven. I like the sound of the bacon one best!

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  4. Do you REALLY want another suggestion as to what to do with them, Cro?

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  5. Love Butternut Squash - I like it roasted in cubes with pancetta cubes, mixed with olive oil and garlic and chopped sage leaves, when ready a good grate of parmesan served with pasta.

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  6. cro you are a size queen... mine are half that size ... I am sufferering from squash envy!
    oh errrrr

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  7. John, this comes from sowing 'saved' seeds. If you do this next year, you should have the same results. My plants I took from the top of the compost heap where, just a few weeks before, I'd chucked the remnants of my final over-wintered squash. Try it!

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  8. Those are HUGE. They could win prizes.

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  9. Oh my what a haul! How nice :O)

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  10. Brilliant Cro...I'm thinking of all the wonderful meals to be conjured up with such a cache!

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  11. Holy mackerel! Mister, that's a LOT of squash! Reminds me of the zucchini crop we had years ago. The family got so sick of eating variations of every squash recipe in existence, they were about ready to use the zucchini as baseball bats on my pumpkin head. (And I'm pretty sure our neighbors started hiding when they saw me coming their way with a bag in hand ...)

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  12. definate squash envy coming from Washington State! What a haul!

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  13. Either that is a VERY small wheelbarrow or they are huge butternuts. I often do a mixed vegetable roast - butternut, red onion, capsicum, kumara (sweet potatoe) agria potatoe, garlic, carrots. Goes well with most things or nibbled cold on its own.

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  14. I've never actually tasted butternut but those look mighty impressive. Enjoy ....

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  15. Molly, you MUST. Try one peeled, quartered, and roasted with a chicken. Even better, leave some of it to eat cold the following day. Delicious.

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  16. I love a butternut squash and chilli risotto - roast your squash with some chilli oil and then add to a nice cheesy/oniony/garlicky risotto made with a gutsy white wine/water mix as liquid. Add lots more parmesan & stir in the squash. Delish!

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