Squash Variations

Method

Variations

Ruby suggests that cooked (steamed, boiled or microwaved) chunks of squash can be tossed in butter with chopped herbs from the garden – parsley, chervil, basil or marjoram, then served with a cheese or tomato sauce to make a vegetable side dish or meal on its own. Her ”cream baked squash” involves mashing the cooked chunks and combining with sour cream, some finely chopped onion and seasoning to taste. I think I might try it using natural yoghourt and chives.

One of Pat’s ideas is to coat the chunks of squash in olive oil, roll them in flour, add at least 4 crushed cloves of garlic and then bake them in a medium oven until soft inside, but with a “crunchy-yum” outside. Her soup sounds good too: you should puree the cooked flesh of the squash and add onion, coconut milk, black pepper, salt and chilli (fresh or powdered, I guess,) to taste. Whizz it up together in the processor before reheating. A nicely seasonal salad recipe from Pat is to steam the peeled squash and then add it to baby spinach leaves, diced beetroot, feta cheese, couscous, chick peas and a tangy dressing.

I can’t wait to start trying these out. At this time of year, courgettes and marrows could replace the butternuts in all of these recipes, so long as your garden marrows are looking more hopeful than those in the Trewhitless garden!

As you might expect from a disorganised kitchen such as mine, I’ve stumbled across my successful fillings for butternuts by accident rather than design. Always bad at judging the amount I should cook when it’s just two of us at home, I first had an awkward amount of curry left over in the fridge, which was just enough to fill two halves of a squash after the seeds were scooped out. With a smearing of olive or sunflower oil over the squash halves still in their skin and popped into the oven for half an hour or so at around 190 degrees C, they made a super supper. Spurred on by the curry filling, I’ve tried another of mixed peppers cooked with onions and garlic (if you like it), and added tinned tomatoes This can make more than enough to stuff even two halved squashes, but the remaining mixture provides a good sauce for the accompanying greens. Our vegetarian friends, who often visit us, were recently presented with their familiar nut roast disguised as a butternut stuffing and I’ve found that various combinations of pulses work really well too. Try a green salad as a fitting accompaniment for the summery weather.

Trebuttuns: a Cornish - sounding anagram of butternuts, and perhaps an appropriate name for Whitstonian variations on the butternut theme. Many thanks to Pat Nasmyth and Ruby Naile for passing on lovely recipes to try out. They all sound delicious and (importantly for me), gloriously uncomplicated.

Mrs Trewhitless