Have Your Feast And Eat It Too
A favorite resource of mine is the More with Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre. It is exactly what it sounds like ... a collection of recipes with a philosophy of low waste and efficiency at its core. Among the many tidbits of wisdom shared in the book, Longacre says, “Find clever ways to use what you have in abundance rather than demanding variety while things go to waste.” That is the essence of seasonal eating, but it is also something I like to apply when cooking that seasonal bounty. I like to minimize my time in the kitchen but maximize the home-cooked goodness that comes out of it. One of my strategies is to cook many dishes that share the same key ingredients all at the same time.
BULK IT UP
With this method of “bulk” cooking, you can make the most of your time around the stove to create a variety of simple but delicious dishes all at once. It is way more fun than cooking a big batch of food and ending up with lots of leftovers. Each dish is unique, incorporating varied herbs, spices and sides to put a different spin on the basic ingredients. Squash is a perfect candidate for bulk cooking since so many winter varieties are super-sized. Follow the instructions here to end up with seven dishes … an entrée for 4–6 people, soup, appetizer, spread, breakfast, snack and—if you like—even a dessert!
You can create any of these recipes individually, but to get the biggest bang for your time-in-the-kitchen buck, make them all in one day ... or at least a few of them. Serve your entrée of stuffed squash to your guests one evening and the next night enjoy a creamy soup for dinner. You’ll create enough bruschetta to offer to dinner guests as an appetizer. Or, save it for a sweet and savory lunch or dinner for yourself on day three. The seeds for snacking may not even last until your first dinner—they are deliciously addictive—but the butternut spread will last for a couple weeks and can be an accompaniment for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Depending on how much dessert you make, you can treat yourself or many. The squash pancakes get their start in your well-packed oven but you can finish them whenever you wake up with a craving for a cinnamony and special breakfast.
THE BASICS
First, we do some chopping and prepping, then load our oven to the max. Next, we parcel out the various ingredients to use in different recipes for sweet, savory and even spicy results. While the oven is going, we cycle through one pot on the stovetop to make the accompaniments to the roasted ingredients. Then a few finishing touches, like puréeing, and we are done! Can you taste them yet?
ABOUT THE SQUASH
Because butternut squash is widely available in our neck of the woods (pun intended) and because the bulb and long neck make appealing cooking and presentation options, and because it is quite easy to slice, I chose butternut as the star of this recipe mashup. But other orange winter squash will do. You can easily adjust recipes to accommodate other varieties such as acorn, hubbard or Long Island cheese, a favorite on our farm. You can even use pumpkin. It just depends on your preferences and what’s easily available.
Shopping List
Oven Prep
1. Check recipes to review options before you get started.
2. Preheat oven to 400°F.
3. Slice three butternut squash (about three pounds each) in half and remove the seeds. Put the seeds in a cold bowl of water to clean for the snack recipe. Separate the bowls from the necks. Assemble all but two half-necks on an oiled baking pan, face down. Prick the skins to vent some steam. (This is for several recipes.)
Note: If you are using another type of squash, these recipes use about nine pounds of squash. You can freeze extra or just keep on cooking!
4. Peel the two half-necks and chop into ¼-inch chunks, then place on a separate pan with ½ pound of chopped mushrooms. Keep the ingredients separate and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. (This is for bruschetta.)
5. In a small greased pan place a cored apple with spices, maple syrup and ½ inch of water. Add more apples if you have room to create a lovely dessert. (This is for butternut butter and baked apple dessert.)
6. On one more oiled baking sheet, arrange at least three halves of red peppers, seeds and core removed. Cut in half and put raw side down. Add one onion, peeled and cut in half, raw side down. Then add 4–8 garlic cloves in their skins. (This is for soup.)
7. On a baking sheet, spread the prepared seeds for making a snack.
8. Most items will be done roasting in about 20 minutes, but check for tenderness while you are roasting. If the item is tender when pierced with a fork, it is ready. Remove to cool. The chopped items may be done a little sooner and the onion and peppers may take a little longer. I like to take the peppers and onions out when they are a bit charred. The seeds can take as little as eight minutes.
9. You will be reserving one onion, one pepper, some mushrooms and garlic, plus the herbs for your stove work. You will also have about half a pepper and half an onion left over. I roasted the extra pepper (because I love roasted peppers on sandwiches) and saved the half onion to use later.
Stove Work
If you really want to keep cleanup simple, just use one pot for all your stove work. Nevertheless, as much as I advocate using only one pot, I really like to make my rice ahead in my usual way. It uses a smaller pot and I find it is more foolproof. So, you can cook your rice first in the pot or start by cooking the ingredients for your squash stuffing. After another light rinse, use the pot to finish your bruschetta. Finish by making your soup in the same pot.
Assembling and Finishing
Follow these recipes to assemble your dishes:
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