Cranberry Squash

From The New Laurel's Kitchen, a delish squash recipe perfect for this holiday season. Try it, you'll like it!

Cranberry Squash  from Laurel's Kitchen

1 1/2 lbs raw winter squash, unpeeled, cut in serving size chunks
1/2 cup raw fresh cranberries
1 small apple, chopped in 3/4" pieces
1/4 cup chopped raisins

juice and grated peel of small orange
1 1/2 Tbls honey
1 Tbls melted butter
dash salt

Arrange pieces of squash in one layer in a baking dish with a cover (or use aluminum foil). Scatter cranberries, chopped apple, and raisins over and around the squash. If you use acorn, butternut, or other small squash, you can halve them, mix all the other ingredients together, and pile the mixture into the cavities. Otherwise, mix orange juice, grated peel, honey butter (if desired) and salt together and pour over squash. 

Cover baking dish and bake until squash is tender--25 to 45 minutes, depending upon the variety.

Makes 4 servings.

My initial debut of this recipe was part of a much much larger meal so we probably made this work for 8 servings, but it's a seriously lovely dish for any squash lover (the cranberries and apples and raisins are the perfect complement!). This will grace our table again, guaranteed.

Squash Soup (two variations)

After receiving a windfall of veggies today I knew it was time to get cookin'! I decided to focus on the butternut squash, and I picked up my copy of Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World; paging through, this recipe caught my eye. Though its name calls for pumpkin, the ingredient list allows for butternut squash as well.

Moroccan Pumpkin Soup

from Olive Trees and Honey by Gil Marks

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 leeks (white & light green parts only) or 2 onions, chopped

8 cups vegetable stock or water

2 to 3 lbs pumpkin, butternut squash, or other winter squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes (5-6 cups)

3 cups cooked chickpeas or 1 cup dried yellow split peas

2 carrots, cut into chunks (optional)

1 to 4 Tbls packed brown sugar

2 cinnamon sticks or 1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground tumeric or saffron thread

1/8 tsp ground allspice or freshly grated nutmeg

1 1/2 tsp salt

ground black pepper to taste

parsley or cilantro or toasted pumpkin seeds or sauteed mushrooms

1. In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the leeks and saute until soft, about 5 mins. Add the stock, pumpkin, chickpeas, optional carrots, sugar, spices, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the pumpkin is very soft, about 50 mins. Discard the cinnamon sticks.

2. To serve, garnish with parsley or pumpkin seeds, or top each bowl with a little mount of sauteed mushrooms.


Variation: 

Fiery Pumpkin Soup

Make the recipe above but omit the cinnamon, ginger and allspice. Add, with the onion, 1 minced clove garlic and 1 minced small hot green chili or Scotch bonnet chili, or add about 1 tsp cayenne and 1/2 tsp ground cumin with the pumpkin.

I had one Georgia Flame pepper and wanted to make the spicy option, but because my toddler doesn't always enjoy spicy foods I decided to make the basic recipe as well. I divided the onions, squash, carrots, lentils and liquid between two pots and added the sweet spices to one pot, garlic and the diced pepper to the other.

Extremely Delish! Would be a great dinner for company this autumn. Serve with green salad and hearty bread with butter.

Gingered Squash

No silly puns for this recipe. Just tasty goodness from [The New] Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson, Caroly Flinders, and Brian Ruppenthal.

Sandy's Gingered Squash

3 cups hot, cooked, mashed winter squash
1 1/2 tsp butter
pinch salt
2 Tbls finely minced fresh ginger
juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbls honey

Mix all ingredients, adjusting the amount of lemon and honey as required for balance. (It will depend on how sweet your squash is).

Makes about 3 cups, or 4 to 6 servings.

Photo care of Spork and Knife

This was an extremely simple recipe to make. However, I regret to say that I made it quickly one afternoon because I had a squash that wasn't going to last much longer and as it turned out that evening my family and I ended up going out to eat at a restaurant with my in-laws. And then we ate things at home on future nights that the sweet squash wouldn't complement. And then it was Christmas. And then it was New Year's. And now the squash really really needs to be tossed from the fridge, even though it was "Food-Saver-ed."

So no family reactions to this recipe because they didn't, in fact, eat any of it. But I did (several spoonfulls) and it was lovely.

I will certainly make this dish again. On a night when we are not going out to a restaurant. ;-)