Since I figured out eating seasonal food tastes better than random shit grown in South America – when fall comes, I’m a sucker for Squash.
If you read Bubba Gump’s Shrimp list and substitute “squash” – that’s pretty much where I’m at…
Every year my friend Marisa has a Pumpkin Fest and I am more excited for the savory dishes then I am for the cider donuts – and that’s saying a hell of a lot.
This year, for the event I made a Roasted Butternut Squash with a Pumpkin Seed Pesto…which was a bit hit with everyone but me for the following reasons:
- If you’ve ever tried to clean your blender after crunching Pepitas in it, you know what I’m saying. (My food processor is too large to keep on the counter and I’m too lazy to rescue it from the closet).
- Pepitas are so high in fat that when you eat them by the fist full, you have some “esplaning” to do to the scale.
- The Squash tasted a little dried out to me.
Other than my being a lazy ass who hates to clean and work out, the squash being dried out is a fixable problem.
I realized I had to stop buying pre-cut vegetables. While they're very seductive, I have shiny fancy knives for a reason. So I must find a way to dispatch a whole squash like all the other big kids.
Today I did exactly that so I could make a low fat Roasted Butternut Squash and Shallot Soup (recipe from Cooking Light November 2008)
Spicy fresh ginger complements the sweet roasted winter squash and shallots in this easy recipe. Serve with a grilled cheese sandwich for a simple supper.
Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 2/3 cup soup and 1 teaspoon chives)
Ingredients
- 4 cups (1-inch) cubed peeled butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 large shallots, peeled and halved
- 1 (1/2-inch) piece peeled fresh ginger, thinly sliced
- 2 1/2 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons (1-inch) slices fresh chives
- Cracked black pepper (optional)
Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Combine first 5 ingredients in a roasting pan or jelly-roll pan; toss well. Bake at 375° for 50 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Cool 10 minutes.
3. Place half of squash mixture and half of broth in a blender. Remove center piece of blender lid (to allow steam to escape); secure blender lid on blender. Place a clean towel over opening in blender lid (to avoid splatters). Blend until smooth. Pour into a large saucepan. Repeat procedure with remaining squash mixture and broth. Cook over medium heat 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Top with chives and pepper, if desired.
So how does one cut into a whole intimidating squash? Um, I still don’t really know. I can show you how NOT to do it. *If you click on the photos, you can see them in full size.
I nuked the squash in the microwave for 2 minutes so the tough skin would be easier to peel.
I cut the neck part away from the bulb part so I could deal with them on their own rather than as a huge scary squash shape.
*I am sure there are real names to the parts of the squash, but I don't know them.
Figuring out very quickly that I hate the veggie peeler, I used a paring knife to cut away the skin in strips. Sadly, I also cut away a large portion of the squash 'flesh', but not on purpose. 
This once proud squash has a lopsided neck. I am that child whose parents grabbed the safety orange plastic pumpkin carving knife out of her hand. Not because they were concerned I was going to hurt myself, but because they couldn't bear to see the poor defenseless gourd in any more pain. My Jack O' Lantern often committed pumpkin suicide long before Halloween night. Seven year old Tracy would come down to the porch to say hello to Jack O' Lantern before school and find him smashed to pieces on the sidewalk. This was not the work of neighborhood hooligans, Jack just couldn't look in the mirror anymore and remember the beauty he'd once been.
Anyway, if you did a good job peeling the neck, you can easily cut the squash into rounds.
If you did a piss poor job, you end up with this: 
And then you stack some of your rounds and cut them into strips. You're doing this because you're hoping all of your squash pieces at the end will be the same size so they cook evenly.
I was pretty excited when I saw my strips that rose from the ashes of my piece of shit non-rounds. I was so excited, in fact, that I got a little cocky. I got this! I thought. My knife skills are so much better than I thought. My butternut squash is going to cook at the same rate, I won't end up with burnt pieces, I will show the world I have spatial relation skills.
Instead, what I have to show you is this:
Which let us be honest here...this is nothing to write (or blog) home about. These uneven squash pieces are a physical reminder of the simple fact that I have no patience. However, for those of you like me, remember this....we're making a soup! So what if the pieces don't cook evenly, we'll have to puree this bitch at the end and the harder pieces will be mixed into the burned ones...and everything will be ok.
Using my new found confidence, I took a melon baller and scooped out the seeds and membranes and general grossness from the center of the 'bulb' portion of the squash.
Quickly, I diced the bulb part as well and put all pieces of the squash in a roasting pan with peeled halved shallots and the peeled minced ginger. If you think my squash pieces were lacking in beauty, you should see the piece of ginger I hacked to death. But I couldn't have any photographic evidence or they might stop selling me produce. Anyway, I roasted the shit out of these guys because I was starving.
Hooray! Thankfully, it was time to throw everything into a blender. The blender is the place where a majority of your mistakes can be hidden. Once I added the chicken broth and heated everything up, you couldn't tell the soup was made with the bastard pieces of some ashamed squash. And, it was actually pretty delicious.
