Waste Not, Want Not

I've spent the last couple hours cooking and pureeing some winter squash for a soup I am making for dinner. The soup recipe calls for frozen pureed squash, which would make the recipe unbelievably easy from my perspective. We, however, have entered the winter squash season for our CSA box. I couldn't be more pleased about this even if it does make soup recipes take 4 times as long to prepare.

The winter squash I am working with this afternoon was one that I wasn't really familiar with before it showed up in our box the Thursday before last. Luckily, I have a culinary bible known as Vegetable Love by Barbara Kafka. The last 140 pages before the index of this cookbook has something called the "Cook's Guide" in which Kafka describes the way to identify, pick, store, prep, and cook almost any vegetable you could think of. Her section on winter squash includes the description of what each type of squash looks like and this was my resource for discovering that the squash I just dealt with was Delicata Squash.

And I quote complete with citation:

"DELICATA (Cucurbita pepo) This small (1 to 1 1/2 pound) cucumber-shaped squash has pale yellow skin creased with green stripes. The flesh is pale yellow with a light taste reminiscent of sweet corn and a texture between that of winter and summer squash. Delicata will store for only 2 to 3 weeks. During storage, the green stripes may turn orange; this color change will not affect the taste. Delicata slices easily and is best steamed, sauteed, or baked. Its small size and shape make it ideal for stuffing." (Kafka, 2005, p. 651)

Two pages later, Kafka describes how to cut said squash and also divulges that the skin is edible. Turn one more page and you'll find directions for steaming said squash. This is what I did.

This book is indispensable to the recipient of a CSA box.

In addition to this information, there is a note somewhere in the winter squash section that says that most winter squash seeds are edible and should be roasted. I have an affinity for roasted seeds and decided to try to live more by the title of my blog by spending 45 minutes picking seeds out of gourd snot.

Unfortunately, Kafka doesn't mention Delicata seeds anywhere in her recipes for roasting seeds. This concerned me, and I went on a web search to see if anyone else had ever tried such a feat. Luckily, the mighty Google led me to a blog called "Lighthearted Locavore" and the author included this entry on delicata seed roasting, complete with pictures (which I lack due to the lack of a worthy camera for such a job). I plan to add some chili powder to mine in addition to salt.

I hope everyone can enjoy some winter squash this season!

Addition:
After making the recipe that I linked above, I would say that the sausage seriously overwhelms the dish. Save yourself the money and the calories and use less or something less fattening. We plan to try it with ground turkey that we have mixed dry or fresh sage into next time. Also, there aren't enough beans in our opinion. As an ex vegetarian, I don't often do meals that are heavy on the meat and was raised on my father's super frugal heavy bean, light meat chili (much to the chagrin of my meat eating friends). More beans and less meat would also bring out the flavor of the squash a bit more, which I am sad to say was not even remotely prevalent enough for my liking.

Just my two cents; take it or leave it.