Thursday, October 15, 2009

MoFo Day 9: Kabocha squash and saag

This is my post for yesterday (Wednesday)!  Things got busy in the evening, with E. Babykins fussing for a very long time.  So I ended up not actually having the time to write it up then.

After my squash fail the other evening, I really wanted some fresh squash.  It's getting to be that season, so I headed to the farmer's market to see what I could find.  There was a lot to choose from, including some of my favorites-- big creamy-skinned butternut squashes, Thelma Sanders squashes, bright-skinned pumpkins, big and burly spaghetti squashes.  But I ended up going with something I can't remember ever preparing for myself before:  a big blue-green kabocha squash.

These squashes never fail to catch my eye at the market.  Their color is a bit offputting to me.  They don't look like something you should eat.  They look like... evil pumpkins or something.  What pumpkins would look like in the netherworld.  But one of my favorite farms (Thomas Farm, just outside Watsonville) was selling them and had a little card describing their deliciousness so I thought what the hell!  Creepy nethersquash it is!

I was quite relieved to find that they're totally normal looking on the inside.  The texture of the roasted flesh is a little odd-- a bit drier and more waxy than most squashes.  Really very creamy and delicious once it hits the mouth, though.

I used the kabocha squash and two bunches of swiss chard (one green, one red) to make a batch of Pumpkin Saag from Veganomicon.  Very very easy, and tasty even with the substitutions.

In last night's excitement, however, I left the leftover saag out on the counter.  We had eaten probably 2/3rds of the batch, so it's not the biggest loss ever, but I would have liked to have eaten that for lunch today.  Sigh.

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