Hello everyone,
We harvested a great deal of squash from our garden this year. Some were little acorn squash, some butternut and some were those massive big Hubbards. They are all mostly stored on the stone floor in our unheated boot room on the north side of our house which is also where our freezer is located. We try to keep that room as cool as possible.
We had been working our way through the smaller ones and the time had finally come to tackle one of the biggins.
My husband Frank was needed to cut it up as I was completely unable even to get a knife into it. This was one of the smallest. I think it weighed in at around 10 pounds.
Frank cut the ends off so he would have a level area to set the squash down and then got the knife through so he could cut it into two pieces.
I really like the flavour of Hubbard squash but as you can see, there is a substantial seed cavity so there is really a lot of wasted space in there.
However, even with that large seed cavity, there is still a great deal of flesh on one of these monsters. Frank cuts it up into wedges first for easier handling. He then removes the skin. On a smaller squash like a butternut we can usually just use a vegetable peeler but these ones need to be peeled with a knife.
After he gets the skin off the wedges I then cut them into chunks. We used some of it that night to make a pot of soup. That left us with about 80% of the squash with which to deal. I divided it into two piles. Half of it I steamed as you see here and the other half I put on a cookie sheet and roasted in the cookstove oven.
I then lay it out in a single layer on a wax paper lined cookie sheet and put it into the freezer. When the pieces are frozen they go into zip top freezer bags labelled appropriately.
Because the squash has already been blanched or roasted it will be very quick to use in a number of different dishes. We like it in soups, casseroles, risottos and of course just eating it as a side vegetable. When we have used up these two bags we will tackle the next one. None of the squash will be wasted. At this rate the squash should last well into the summer. I have already planned out what squash I want to grow for this year. All the varieties we are now growing are open pollinated heirlooms so we can now save our own seed and be completely self-sufficient in squash. One less type of seed to buy and a bit more money saved.
Thanks so much for visiting with me today. Do leave me any comments you may have. Cheers.
~ Melanie~
We harvested a great deal of squash from our garden this year. Some were little acorn squash, some butternut and some were those massive big Hubbards. They are all mostly stored on the stone floor in our unheated boot room on the north side of our house which is also where our freezer is located. We try to keep that room as cool as possible.
We had been working our way through the smaller ones and the time had finally come to tackle one of the biggins.
My husband Frank was needed to cut it up as I was completely unable even to get a knife into it. This was one of the smallest. I think it weighed in at around 10 pounds.
Frank cut the ends off so he would have a level area to set the squash down and then got the knife through so he could cut it into two pieces.
I really like the flavour of Hubbard squash but as you can see, there is a substantial seed cavity so there is really a lot of wasted space in there.
However, even with that large seed cavity, there is still a great deal of flesh on one of these monsters. Frank cuts it up into wedges first for easier handling. He then removes the skin. On a smaller squash like a butternut we can usually just use a vegetable peeler but these ones need to be peeled with a knife.
After he gets the skin off the wedges I then cut them into chunks. We used some of it that night to make a pot of soup. That left us with about 80% of the squash with which to deal. I divided it into two piles. Half of it I steamed as you see here and the other half I put on a cookie sheet and roasted in the cookstove oven.
I then lay it out in a single layer on a wax paper lined cookie sheet and put it into the freezer. When the pieces are frozen they go into zip top freezer bags labelled appropriately.
Because the squash has already been blanched or roasted it will be very quick to use in a number of different dishes. We like it in soups, casseroles, risottos and of course just eating it as a side vegetable. When we have used up these two bags we will tackle the next one. None of the squash will be wasted. At this rate the squash should last well into the summer. I have already planned out what squash I want to grow for this year. All the varieties we are now growing are open pollinated heirlooms so we can now save our own seed and be completely self-sufficient in squash. One less type of seed to buy and a bit more money saved.
Thanks so much for visiting with me today. Do leave me any comments you may have. Cheers.
~ Melanie~
sounds all so yummy, can you share your giant Hubbard squash soup recipe. thanks.
ReplyDelete