My Lunches With Butternut Squash

This last week I was on a mission. In the past I've had butternut squash, but this year I grew enough for one every week for five months. Usually I puree most of it and have things like squash casserole, cake/bread, or pie. But with so many squashes in my pantry this year I thought I ought to try some new recipes. And note that my husband doesn't eat butternut squash so it is on me to finish all these. So with that in mind I had to get some new recipes for squash.

Winter is all about soups for me, so I wanted to make two kids of soups, both with beans and squash as that is what is in my pantry. One is the typical curry based soup. I haven't done this yet. For this I'm going to have to make my own curry powder. I'll have to experiment with it. I can't use prepackaged curry powders since I can't eat the chili peppers that they all contain. The other I wanted to be a more traditional western soup. Granny came to my rescue with this one. She sent me a whole bunch of recipes with squash and one of them contained a soup recipe. It was a fairly basic ham and beans soup but it had squash in it. Lots of squash. I hadn't thought of adding ham to a squash and bean soup. It was perfect. Though as usual with ham a beans soups, it was very heavy. So my final addition to brighten it up a bit was some Greek yogurt stirred in just before eating. The recipe called for a ham bone, but I used a ham hock. I haven't cooked with ham hocks before, but I like them. Sadly I've never seen them for sale at the farmers markets. Mine came from a half pig that my townhouse mates and I split ages ago. It has been a long time since I've bought any kind of meat from a supermarket. But ham hocks might make me go.

The next recipe tried was Smoked Ham and Butternut Squash Spaghetti from Food Wishes. This was so good. As in the last recipe I found it a bit heavy so I added a dash of lemon juice and some white wine to the sauce which helped a lot. Maybe next time I'll add a touch of sage. Sadly though my sage plants didn't do well this year. One of the even died. The last one seems pretty sick. So I don't have a lot of sage this year. Which is sad since I love sage and butternut squash. I might just have to buy some. After the changes its only problem is the call for mascarpone cheese which is not something that I normal stock in my fridge. I wonder if mascarpone cheese freezes. That would solve the problem.

The other two recipes I made were tried and true. This was my black bean and squash tacos. I liked them better last year. I wonder what I'm doing differently this year. I also made some left over hot pot soup yesterday. This version though was done as an egg drop soup.

I'll probably still look for more recipes containing squash. I think what I'd love to try now is just the typical squash puree or sauteed cubes as a side dish. You know the fairly plain and easy side dish that I can eat any day with most of my meals. I do love squash that way. But the question becomes what seasonings and other ingredients to put in it. I could go savory and add butter and sage. Or maybe a cumin based one. I could go sweet and add a touch of maple syrup and pie spices. What is your favorite way to prepare it?

I'm hoping Robin is back from her vacation and she has power and no damage. I know she lives in eastern PA which was hit by Sandy. If she gets her post up I'm going to link to Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard, if not I'm going to chew my fingernails down.