Hearty winter vegetables, full of vitamins and tasty goodness, means lots of squash stews and baked/boiled/steamed squash. The interns are quite fond of the varieties of squashes here because they're so delicious and so easy to use in any dish. Most lunches and dinners in our communal kitchen incorporate squash. 

A list of some house favorites:

Delicata: Oh you beautiful piece of ground fruit. Those gold and green stripes, that incredible tender flesh. I love you dearly, Delicata. 

What to do: For these, just cut 'em in half longways, scoop out the seeds and that stringy stuff, and slice them into nice little halfmoons. Put them on a cookie tray to bake covered in a nice coating of olive oil. For more savory, add thyme and rosemary to it. If you want to sweeten this already sweet squash, bake for a little and then drizzle maple syrup and sprinkle cinnamon, put them back in the oven, bake some more. You could make an entire meal with this one squash. This is also a great potluck dish because it's so easy to make and is a crowd pleaser.

Buttercup: This sweet little green pumpkin is, I think, perfect to mix with potatoes and rice to make a simple stew. Throw in some more vegetables, get wild!, if you want to experiment. 

What to do: Slice and scoop out the inside gunk, and chop up into nice sized chunks. Boil them (or steam, whatever you want) until the meat of the squash is easily pierced. Strain the squash and rinse with cold water. Peel off the skin and mix in with rice and potatoes. I like to really mix them in so they kind of fall apart and cover the rice, one homogenous mess. Add cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika, and curry. Lots of curry. Lentils are also really nice to mix in with this, if you're feeling more adventurous. 

Spaghetti: Yes! Squash that can be pasta! What more could you ask for? We've only used this one a couple of times but every time I am BLOWN AWAY. 

What to do: Steam them for a while, and then peel off the skins and kind of fork the meal apart. It should peel apart easily into nice spaghetti strips. We mixed this with a homemade pesto sauce and it was just incredible. I know I'm using a lot of superlatives here but really, truly incredible. 

Pesto sauce: 

Some kind of nice nut (we used almonds, but walnuts are great and, ideally, pine nuts are the best) 

Olive oil (a looooooooooooooooooottt of olive oil, you want these to be drowning in olive oil)

Parsley (fresh picked from the garden) 

Basil (if you have it. We did solely parsley but it would have been nice to have some basil)

Salt

Black pepper

Garlic (a couple cloves preferably but garlic powder works too) 

Blend it all up in a food processor and give it a taste. Once to your liking, mix it in with the squash and serve it up! Everyone will love it. 

There are so many other varieties of squash at the farm-- butternut, red kuri, pink banana, blue hubbard-- but these three are by far my favorites. Enjoy these tasties all winter long!

Here's a picture of Pete:

Mairi P, Winter Intern '16