Sweet Meat Squash Sunday

Our Open Oak Farm CSA included half of a giant sweet meat squash.  I roasted it last weekend and divided it up into three separate freezer servings (each about 4 cups--this was a big squash).  Today is a good day to eat squash all day.

We started breakfast with Pumpkin pancakes from Eating Close to Home.  These pancakes when cooked on the light side tasted a little big like pumpkin pie even with the same gooeyness.  Later in the day moved on to a Pumpkin Scone recipe our friend Jean found in a Sunset Magazine in September 2001.  I'm trying to use rye flour from Lonesome Whistle Farm in my baking and tried this scone recipe for the first time with a mix of flours.

Sweet Meat Squash Pancakes (from Eating Close to Home)
1 egg
1 c sweet meat squash roasted (Open Oak CSA)
1/2 c flour
2 t sugar
1/4 t salt
1/2 t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
1 t melted butter
1/4-1/2 c milk

Mix egg and squash together and then mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl.  Carefully blend together and then add butter and milk.



Sweet Meat Squash Scones (from Sunset Magazine)
1 c rye flour (Lonesome Whistle CSA)
1 1/2 c wheat/white mx
1/4 c brown sugar
1 T baking powder
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
1/2 c butter cut into chunks
3/4 c sweet meat squash roasted (Open Oak CSA)
1/2 c heavy cream (calls for milk...but cream is too good not to use!) + I had to add some more due to the dryness of the flours
cinnamon/sugar mix

Mix together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.  Add butter and use pastry blender to mix into a course crumb mixture.  Combine squash and milk in a separate bowl and then add to the dry ingredients.  Mix until just wet and pour onto a floured board.  Turn over and gently kneed 5-6 times.  Pat dough into a round and 1" thick and cut into equal wedges (12 today).  Place on greased cookie sheet and bake 375F for 25 minutes.  I forgot to brush them with an egg yolk, milk and sugar...so I sprinkled cinnamon-sugar on the top and baked again for 4 minutes.

Squash Gratin

Thank you Ellen for making this recipe for Nicole. Thank you Nicole for making it for us. And thank you Ellen for emailing me a scan of an evidently well loved copy of the recipe so we could adapt and enjoy it with our sweet meat winter squash. It is wonderful to eat fresh out of the oven and as leftovers.

Squash Gratin adapted from Provence the Beautiful Cookbook

4 T olive oil

1 onion (from CSA)

1/4 sweet meat winter squash roasted, peeled, and diced (from CSA)

salt

2 T water

½ c half and half

2 eggs

½ c Parmesan, Asiago, Romano cheese blend

Pepper

Nutmeg

Place sweet meat squash on a baking dish "flesh" side down. Poke holes in skin with a knife. Bake at 300F for 30 min. Remove from oven. Let squash cool and then peel. Cut squash flesh into 1 inch chunks.

Heat 2 T olive oil. Add onion and cook until transparent. Add squash, salt, and water cover and stir often until squash has reduced almost to a puree about 30 min (I still had lots of squash chunks in the final product and liked the texture). Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375F. Spray baking pan with oil.

In a small bowl, whisk together half and half, eggs, 1/4 c of the cheese, pepper, and nutmeg. Stir the egg mixture into the squash. Then pour into gratin dish. Sprinkle with 1/4 c cheese. Dribble 2 T olive oil over the surface in a criss cross pattern. Bake 375F 30 min.

Sweet Meat Squash and Escarole Pizza (aka Rose Bowl Pizza)

Our last CSA bag of 2011 included half of an Oregon Homestead Sweet Meat Winter Squash. It's huge! We have already had too many sweets in our family recently so I didn't want to make a pie. I've already made a couple of different types of pasta with butternut squash this fall so I rejected the pasta ideas. There are many squash soup recipes available, but I recently made butternut squash chowder. I wanted to try something different with this squash. With a quick search, I found a recipe for caramelized butternut squash pizza. Homemade pizza with whatever seasonal toppings are in our refrigerator is a favorite in our family, and we always had pizza on Saturday nights when I was little. Here's a new combination for us with sweet meat and escarole. I realized as I was cooking the ingredients that the squash and greens are yellow and green. So this turned into Rose Bowl Pizza to celebrate the Ducks win today (which we ate during the last exciting quarter of the game)!

My husband declared of the pizza, "This is good! Really, really good!" It's a winner!

Pizza Dough

2 1/4 t yeast

1 T sugar

1 c warm water

3 T olive oil

1/2 t salt

2 3/4 c wheat flour (can use white flour and only 2 T oil)

Mix yeast, sugar and water together in a bowl (I use my mixer for everything); proof yeast for 15 minutes. Add in oil, salt, and wheat flour. Mix thoroughly. Let dough rise for 1 hour. Turn out onto floured board and roll into pizza pan shape. Add toppings. Bake 400F for 18-20 minutes.

Squash-Escarole Topping

1/4 sweet meat squash (from CSA)

1 bunch escarole chopped (from CSA)

1/2 onion chopped (from CSA)

3 cloves garlic (from CSA)

Olive oil

4 T Butter

1/2 t dried sage

black pepper

salt

Parmesan cheese

Sharp Tillamook Cheese

Place sweet meat squash on a baking dish "flesh" side down. Poke holes in skin with a knife. Bake at 300F for 30 min. Remove from oven. Let squash cool and then peel. Cut squash flesh into 1 inch chunks.

Melt butter in big sauce pan. Add in squash chunks and onions. Let cook until onions are soft. Add in sage, salt, and pepper and stir. Add in escarole and garlic.

Cook just a few minutes until greens are wilted.

Cover pizza dough with olive oil. Add cooked toppings (and make 4 year old approved corner with turkey pepperoni).

Top with cheese. Bake 400F for 18 minutes.