Butternut Squash

I started haunting our local apple seller at the beginning of September. You might think I was itching to get my hands on some early season apples, but what I was actually looking for was Butternut Squash.

Butternut Squash is a Winter squash commonly available during the Fall months. Winter squash differs from Summer squash in that it must be cooked before eating. Butternut is high in Vitamin A, Vitamin C, manganese, magnesium and potassium, and it's low in calories. It has a sweet, nutty flavor and can be used in place of Pumpkin in most recipes. And, like Pumpkin, the seeds can be roasted and eaten as a nutritional snack.

My family and I are big fans of Butternut. We eat it just out of the oven, with butter and a drizzle of honey. Butternut Squash soup and bread make a lovely Autumn meal, and a friend has even made oven baked fries with Butternut squash. It was such a fantastic growing season here in South Central Minnesota that we've been able to buy 5 - 10 pound squash for $1.99 each. That's a lot of squash! And, it freezes well, so we've been stocking up.

I made Butternut Squash Bread Sunday night. My family loved it, the neighbors loved it, and a friend ordered a batch after sampling it. I used my Pumpkin Bread recipe, substituting the squash for the pumpkin and brown sugar for white. It turned out lighter, moister and more buttery than the Pumpkin Bread. The recipe follows -


Butternut Squash Bread
Ingredients:

• 1 cup vegetable oil


• 2 cups Brown sugar


• 2 cups of cooked, mashed Butternut squash


• 4 eggs (slightly scrambled)


• 3 1/2 cups flour


• 1 tsp baking soda


• 2 tsp baking powder


• 2 tsp salt


• 3 tsp Apple Pie spice


• 1/3 cup water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large mixing bowl, mix sugar, oil, eggs and squash. Slowly stir in remaining ingredients. Add water and stir well. Pour batter into loaf pans (this recipe is enough for 3 standard size loaves). Bake for at least an hour or until a toothpick inserted in the top of the loaf comes out clean.

Feel free to experiment with chocolate chips, nuts or your favorite glaze to dress this up.

French Onion Soup

It's a cool day here in southern Minnesota, so I decided to make a family favorite, French Onion Soup. Even my 7 year old loves it.









Ingredients

• 5 large Vidalia (sweet) onions


• 1 heaping tablespoon of minced garlic


• 2 tablespoons butter


• 1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil


• 1 teaspoon granulated sugar


• 8 cups beef stock


• 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper


• 1 teaspoon dried Thyme leaves


• 1 teaspoon ground Sage


• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper


• 1/2 cup White cooking wine


• 3/4 cup cooking Sherry


• Parmesan Cheese (shredded) as garnish

Slice onions in half and then cut into strips. Saute onion and garlic in the butter and olive oil in a large frying pan, until the onions are translucent. Sprinkle the sugar into the onions and garlic and stir.

While the onions are cooking down, in a large stock pot, combine beef stock, white pepper, Thyme, Sage and ground black pepper. Bring to a boil.

Once the onions are done, add them to the boiling broth. Then add the White wine and sherry. Turn the heat back to medium and let cook for half an hour.

Serve in soup bowls garnished with shredded (real) Parmesan Cheese.

The thing I love about making this soup is the aroma that rises up just after I add the wine and Sherry. If I could bottle it, I'd wear it as perfume.

Follow the Instructions... mmmmmkay

I needed to find a basic sweet Shortcake recipe today. With the great deal I got on strawberries, Strawberry Shortcake seemed like a nice surprise for my husband. After looking at 6 recipes online I finally found one that didn't require shortening (lard) or buttermilk, and did have sugar as an ingredient.

I followed the recipe, tasted the batter and it wasn't quite sweet enough, so I added another teaspoon of sugar. The recipe said to pour the batter into a pie tin, but I did it drop style on a cookie sheet. It was only supposed to take 12 minutes to bake them in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven, but cooktime was actually 20 minutes.

They were delectable - moist, buttery, sweet, melt-in-your mouth cakes, perfect for soaking in the strawberry juice. I'll be adding this one to the recipe box for sure!

Basic Shortcake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

• 2 cups flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 3/4 cup of milk
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) of butter - room temperature

Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl. Slice butter into 4 pieces and work into dry mixture until consistency is uniform. Slowly stir in the milk. Batter will be thick and sticky. Drop batter by tablespoonful onto non-stick cookie sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. Yield = 12