Squash Recipes

     In an effort to both save money on groceries lately (due to some party planning expenses for Miss D's upcoming birthday celebrations,) and to use up some of the delicious squashes that we recently harvested from our garden, I have been experimenting a lot in the kitchen lately. I started out searching allrecipes.com and then let my available groceries and imagination guide me.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Garlic Lasagna Recipe (Serves 12)

1 Lg. butternut squash, halved and seeded

3 T olive oil

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 C. butter

2-4 cloves of garlic, minced

1/4 C. flour ( I used my own GF blend)

1 quart milk

salt and pepper to taste

1 Pkg. Lasagna Noodles (I used GF)

1 1/2 C. parm. cheese

1/2 C. shredded mozz. cheese

1 lb. ground beef, chicken or turkey

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Cut the butternut squash in half lengthwise. Scoop out the flesh and seeds and set aside. Brush each squash half with olive oil  and season with salt. Roast until golden and easily pierced with a knife, approx 45-50 mins. Allow to cool 15-20 mins. and then scoop flesh out into a bowl. I used my immersion blender at this point to puree the squash, but you can either use a food processor or potato masher depending on the consistency you desire.

2. Brown meat in a skillet and drain. Set aside for later. ( for a vegetarian option you can easily omit this part. We are big meat eaters in our house, so I actually added it to the recipe when I modified.)

3. Heat butter in Lg. skillet over med-low heat. Stir in garlic and cook until softened. Stir in flour and cook for 3 mins. Whisk in the milk until smooth. Bring to a boil and then simmer on low until thickened, about 10 mins. Stir in the butternut squash and season with salt and pepper. 

4. Reduce oven temp to 375 degrees F. Grease 9 x 12 baking dish ( I used the same one I roasted the squash in as it was pretty much already greased.) Layer 1/3 of the butternut sauce, 1/3 of the noodles, 1/3 of the meat and 1/3 of the parm.cheese. Repeat process 2 more times and top with all of the mozz. cheese. Cover with foil and cook for 30 mins. Remove foil and then cook until top is bubbly and brown (approx.10 mins.)

*Optional Step 5. Make Roasted Butternut Squash Seeds
Reduce oven temp. to 200 degrees F. Separate seeds from flesh  and spread out on a cookie sheet. Salt generously with kosher sea salt and roast for approx. 30 mins. I would have included a picture of our roasted seeds however the kids have already gobbled them all up! 

Butternut Squash & Turkey Chili Recipe (serves 12)

2 T olive oil

1 onion, chopped, 

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 lb. ground turkey

1 Lg. butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced

1/2 C. chicken broth

1 16oz. bag frozen corn

2  Lg. cans petite diced tomatoes (or 4 C. fresh/canned tomatoes, diced)

2 (15oz.) cans kidney beans

1 T chili powder

1 T cumin

1 T paprika

1 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1. Heat olive oil in Lg. pot over med. heat. Stir in onion and garlic. Cook and stir for 3 mins. Add turkey and stir until crumbly and no longer pink.

2, Add the butternut squash, chicken broth, tomatoes, kidney beans, and corn. Season with chili powder, cumin, paprika, garlic powder and salt. Bring to a low boil then reduce heat to med-low and simmer until squash is tender, about 20 mins. 

     As it turns out, both of these recipes ended up being so good that I plan to make them, along with a salad, for lunch at Miss D's birthday party in a couple weeks. I am also working on a butternut squash frosting recipe for her cake. I tried one last year and it was okay, but I really want to find one that I'm more excited about this year. Lord knows we have plenty of butternut squash!!!

     If you are a regular follower, I am sure that you have noticed that I am new here. Better known as "the wife," as Mr. J so lovingly refers to me, I am the polar opposite of my husband. While he is a man of few words, you can see that I can tend to ramble quite a bit. I have been a stay at home mom for over 5 years now and with 3 small kids at home I do not have a lot of spare time, but I am going to try to do my best to blog a bit myself. We are really trying to simplify things in our home and as part of our "less is more" approach, I have recently cancelled my Facebook account. The plan is to have more time with my family, to craft, cook, clean, and farm. In order to keep in touch with our family and friends who do not live locally, I will also share more about the kids and our day to day activities. Stay tuned and brace yourselves for the mini-novels that will be coming your way courtesy of Mrs. J!!! :)

Carrots and Squashes

   We picked some of the squashes this weekend and stored them in the root cellar. Even with all that we picked there is still about a dozen more on the vine ripening.
   We also pulled up the carrots, which the kids love to do. All though we could've left them out there, with things starting to get a little busy we decided to get them up now before ran out of time.

We planted a different kind of carrot called Hercules this year, and even though we had less plants we got more of a yield compared to last year, due to the size of the carrots. We ordered them from Johnny seeds and will do the same next year, very impressed with the quality and taste.

Big Piggies

   With less than a month to go before the pigs go to the butcher, we decided to try to measure them and determine how much they weigh. What we did is measure the girth around the body just behind the front legs and measured from the back of the ears to the base of the tail. We used some string and then measured the string with a tape measure. Then you take the girth measurement and square it, then multiply that number by the length. Then you divide that number by 400 which gives you the pig's weight in pounds. They say it's accurate within five pounds or so. All the pigs ended up weighing 156 lbs. We've been feeding them corn, beets, apples, and all the garden waste along with their normal food to try and fatten them up before they go to the butcher.
   Below is a song that the kids love to sing when we talk about the pigs.

Irish Potato Barrel

   I took the potato barrel apart today hoping to find a bucket worth of potatoes, but sadly only found a few. The idea is that as the potato plant grows, you pile more and more dirt around it, and the plant will grow more potatoes from the base. I think what happen instead was, that the plant spent so much energy climbing higher and higher that the plant didn't have enough energy to make more potatoes. Had the season been longer it might have worked. Oh well, my wife is happy that it didn't work. That way she doesn't have to look at piles of tires around the yard.

Saving Seeds

   In an effort to save money and not buy seeds next year we have started saving our seeds for next year. We also think it's kind of cool to keep growing from generation after generation the same vegetable ever year.
   Tomato seeds take a few more steps then just letting the seeds dry out and putting them in an envelope like we've been doing with other vegetables. First you have to cut the tomato in half and scoop out the seeds, if any gel or tomato chunks come out that's fine. Then you put them in a jar and add about an inch of water. Put a loose cover over the jars and store them in a warm place out of the way. After about three days or so, mold should start to grow on top. This represents what happens in nature when a tomato rots, the mold strips the protective covering around the seed allowing it to germinate when you plant the seed. Once you got a good cover of mold it's time to rinse and dry. What you do is either scoop out the mold with a spoon or pour some water in slowly until the mold flows over. If any seeds come out along with the gunk that's fine you only want the seeds that sink to the bottom. Discard any seeds that float.  Once you get all the stuff out, pour the water out leaving the seeds behind. Then scoop the seeds onto a paper towel and spread them out. Leave them in a dry space tell they completely dry out, and then store them in an envelope. If you do more than one kind of tomato, make sure you keep everything labeled so you know what type of seed your saving.

   We're looking forward to next year, to plant all the seeds we've been saving.

Making Tomato Sauce

   We planted 40 tomato plants this year, with about half of them being plum tomatoes. We plan to make salsa and other things out of them, but what we really wanted to do this year is stock up on tomato sauce.
   Without an electric tomato strainer we had to come up with a way to make sauce. After washing the tomatoes, we cut out the stem base and put them into a food processor. We processed them until they turn into a pure liquid form. Then we poured them into a sieve that was over a big bowl. With a spatula we turned, scraped, and pushed the mash through the sieve leaving only the seeds and skins behind. After we had a good amount of juice, we poured into a pot, and brought it to boil on the cook top. As it reduced we kept adding more to the pot. Once we ran out of tomatoes we let it reduce to the desired consistency that we were looking for. One grocery bag of tomatoes made 2 1/2 qts. of sauce. We plan to make spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, and ketchup out of the sauce later on, along with tomato soup, of course. With 40 plants we'll have plenty of sauce to make.

Potato Harvest

   We finally harvested the potatoes this week. We let the plants die back and waited two weeks before digging them up. It was a family affair, I dug them up while the kids picked them up from the ground and put them in a bucket, once the bucket was full my wife dumped the potatoes into a pile. The next day we put them in the root cellar, that I made last year. I don't know how many pounds we have but they filled up the five gallon bucket nine times.