weekly_food_challenge | Entries tagged with veg: squash

Mood: pleased

This week for the hand held challenge, I have cooked lentil and squash pasties. The recipe is from my River Cottage Everyday cookbook, but the recipe is also online here.

I am not that well practised at pastry-making, but it's something I want to learn more about. This was my first attempt at rough puff pastry - I have made proper puff pastry once before, but it was a long time ago. I made a mistake in that I did not allow enough time for the filling to properly cool first, so I'm pretty sure this affected my pastry and certainly made it difficult to work with as soon as the filling came into contact with it. I would recommend making the filling earlier in the day and giving it plenty of time to cool and maybe even get it into the fridge before filling those pasties.

I also generally think that shortcrust pastry works better for pasties.

Nevertheless, these were tasty, and still edible despite my mistakes. I think I do generally prefer meat-filled pasties, but as a veggie substitute these aren't bad. I cheated and bought ready chopped squash and also substituted cider vinegar for the apple balsamic, and french whole-grain for English mustard.*

Also, I have to admit to eating mine with a knife and fork because it was hot. But you could definitely eat them with your hands when cooler! (Although the pastry was quite flaky, which is why I think shortcrust works better for handheld things.)

*Yes, I'm a traitor.

missdiane

The leftovers I had were some garlic thyme chicken thighs (need to use up my meat before veggie January!) I made in my pressure cooker and some butternut squash sticks I roasted in the oven with some maple syrup. I added in mushrooms, snow peas, soy sauce and sesame oil and topped it off with some toasted sesame seeds. Turned out fabulous

innerbrat

Challenge #5: Eggs: Egg Fried Rice

Ingredients
Some rice
Some vegetables (chopped)
Some nuts
Some eggs (beaten)
Peanut oil, soy sauce, coriander.

Directions

If the rice is already cooked (e.g. because it is from Last Night's Chinese Takeway) go to step 2. Otherwise, cook the rice
Heat a large dollop of peanut oil in the largest frying pan you have. Add the cooked rice and stir-fry it
Add the vegetables and nuts, and stir through the rice until cooked.
Make a well in the middle of the rice, right through to the frying pan bottom. Pour in the beaten eggs and scramble them until scrambled. Then stir into the rest of the rice.
Add soy sauce and coriander.
Eat.

norfolkian

I had a bit of a disaster with the squash challenge. I was going to make this:http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/8910/kale-pumpkin-and-bacon-pot - which I have made before and is very nice. But my bacon had gone hard and manky, but I'd already chopped up the squash when I discovered this. It doesn't work without the bacon. :(

In lieu of anything yummy to show you, please see this blog post I did a year or so a go when I made up a yummy squash recipe: http://nolovesincerer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/roast-squash-with-bacon-mushroom-rice.html

I hope to be more successful with my swede!

gominokouhai

I bought these at the market this weekend. They are, I'm told, red onion squash. Peeled and chopped them and roasted them with a maple syrup glaze. It didn't work particularly well, mostly because I burned them.

stormsearch was ecstatic however. Maybe I'm just not keen on squash. The smell was amazing though; candied orange peel and toasted walnuts. Between peeling and fishing out a metric shitton of seeds and cthuloid stringy pulp stuff, they took a billion years to prepare and I'm not convinced I'm going to bother doing them again. Were I to do so, the squash itself is fairly sweet and the maple glaze wasn't such a brilliant idea; something smokier, maybe involving paprika, would be a better idea.

I am rather more keen on the lime-and-coriander turkey burgers I made to go with them. They were fantastic, but alas this isn't turkey burger challenge week.

Had a massive bowlful of seeds left over. Toasted them for fifteen minutes on a low heat (135°C). The first batch just with salt and pepper, the second lot with garlic and paprika. These were fantastic. They're also low-carb and low-GI (or is it high? whichever means good), if that's your thang.

Getting the pulp and stringy crap off the seeds was longwinded but actually quite relaxing, once I'd developed an algorithm for it:

Spread everything on a piece of kitchen roll, and put another piece of kitchen roll on top. Press down to absorb some of the juice.

DO UNTIL bored
Turn everything upside down

Slowly peel back the top piece of kitchen roll. Pick off any seeds that have separated themselves from the morass and stuck to the paper.

Pick out any other seeds that have obviously come loose.

Put another piece of kitchen roll on top, press down.

END DO

Throw remaining pulp into the stockpot. In doing so, you'll find a handful of extra seeds you missed.

I've had half a pig in the freezer for the better part of a year now. We named him Boris because of the resemblance. Last night, it was finally time to make some space in the freezer, so it was time to roast a rolled shoulder of Boris bigger than your head.

Tried something a bit different this time. Rubbed the skin with oil, salted and peppered the fuck out of it, and dumped the whole thing in the oven on low (160°C). After an hour, dropped in the squash wedges and sat the joint back on top of them. Everything was nicely done, with Boris just medium rare in the middle and utterly fantastic crackling on the outside, after another hour and a half. Then I had plenty of pig-squash juices left in the tin with which to make gravy.

An odd thing happened when I went back for seconds. I microwaved everything, just for a minute, to warm it back up, and afterwards the squash had completely changed taste. I can't put my finger on what was wrong with it—wasn't quite bitter, wasn't quite sour, but something along those lines. In any case I was definitely less keen the second time around.

Lo, am I like unto a culinary god.

And that concludes Squash Week. Frankly, I wasn't too keen on the squash itself, but the things that went with it were incredible.

el_staplador

Just catching up here; hope that's OK.

( Week 1: Naleśniki Nadziewane z Jabłkami )

( Week 2: Italianate Fridge Salad )

( Week 3: Squash Goulash )

missdiane

Life's been so nuts lately with my new job that if I didn't have a challenge to make something with squash, I probably would've lived on bologna sandwiches this week since I just.can't.be.bothered. So thanks for encouraging vegatable-y goodness :)

I made a somewhat modified version of Roasted Corn Pudding in Acorn Squash from 101 Cookbooks (she has some awesome recipes). Go check out her pictures, they're lovely. I took a picture of mine but I'm too fried to bother with hooking up the camera and uploading and all. It didn't turn out as fabulous as hers likely was because in my lazy version, I used a small can of creamed corn that I had and since I didn't have scallions, I used shallots. I also did what one commenter suggested and pre-cooked the squash in the microwave to shorten the time down since an hour and a half cooking time during the work week is a bit much.

My results were ok. I think it looks better than it tastes. Perhaps if I'd have mixed in the cheese rather than just sprinkling it on top or did the full roasting at the beginning it would've had more character. As it was, it felt somewhat bland and the corn pudding texture didn't always marry well with the already starchy squash.

I think I'll stick to the traditional sweet way of preparing acorn squash. You can't beat some butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and sometimes a dash of maple syrup.

miss_s_b

Mood: full
Location: sofa
Music: Blake's 7 series 3 on the telly

Ended up using the squash with a healthy roast dinner:

That's pork roasted in cider (with crackling om nom nom), beetroot likewise roasted in cider round the pork, cauliflower & leek in cheese sauce, mixed variety steamed carrots, potatoes roasted in goose fat... and mashed butternut squash. So, you know, the squash wasn't really central to the meal, but it WAS yummy, and very easy to prepare once the ballache of peeling it was over. I steamed it till tender and then mashed it with a bit of butter. That's it.

My cheese sauce recipe, btw, is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Ingredients in the order of adding to the pan:

One small onion, finely chopped and gently fried in butter till clear.
A pint of milk.
A garlic cube.
A teaspoonful of wholegrain mustard.
Some cornflour to thicken.
And once it's thickened, lots of cheeeeeeeeeeeese.

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Weekly Food Challenge

A challenge for cooks every Wednesday

Entries tagged with veg: squash

Challenge 53: Hand held - Lentil and squash pasties

When in doubt, stir fry!

S V F X

Challenge #3: Squash

Squash challenge: three things

3 for the price of 1

Challenges are good for me, I think

Challenge #3: Squash!

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December 2018

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