Not that I have even the slightest idea what to do with butternut squash, but I cannot cope with being thwarted by a vegetable--especially one related to zucchini. As children, my sister and I used to sneak out into the garden to try to kill the zucchini plant before it invaded our summer meals. The zucchini bread was fine, and the zucchini brownies looked weird but were actually pretty tasty, but I thought the zucchini boats were a bit over the top. That surfaced when the zucchinis had become the size of a small child, and our mother would cut one in half, scoop out the mushy insides, mix the mushy insides with ground beef and onion, then load it all back into the zucchini shell and cover it all with cheddar cheese. I was well into my late 20s before I was willing to try zucchini in any form after that one.
I have long suspected that the reason most people grow zucchini is that it is easy to grow in very prolific amounts. And as an added bonus, it takes up so much space that even if there is nothing else growing, zucchini makes it look like you have a large garden. It's everywhere. There should be one zucchini plant per subdivision because no one can keep up with even a single plant. People start sneaking out at night to leave sacks of zucchini on the doorsteps of unsuspecting neighbors just to get rid of it. This year I will be making a sign for our front door:
Anyone caught leaving zucchini on this doorstep will have it returned to them as zucchini boats.
Let the summer games begin!
4 comments:
They're not too good roasted, in my experience, but I highly recommend making soup with it. Maybe it would help if you thought of it as a pumpkin, like we do in Australia?
I have an excellent recipe, I'll forward you the link. I tried butternut squash risotto once - sounds good in theory...not so much in practice.
Butternut squash is actually my favorite food of all, ever. I agree that it is great in soup, with ginger or nutmeg. I also bake it (cut in half first and remove seeds) face down in a shallow pan with a bit of water in it. Put some seasoning or butter on that. Heaven. You can also bake it, scoop that out and do it like mashed potatoes.
OK, it can also go in stew, in cubes.
It's good in Indian-style dishes.
I'll stop now. Makes me hungry.
I hate peeling butternut, but Betty Crocker's Slow Cooker Cookbook has a good recipe for pork chops, apples and squash. My zucchini aha! moment came when I learned to shred it. Then it becomes amenable to stir frying for pitas and pizza.
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