The Great Squash Dilemma

Nov 29, 2009 18:49

So the last time I went home to visit the parents, I came back to town with two squash ( Read more... )

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Comments 37

bard_linn November 30 2009, 00:52:01 UTC
Try looking up pumpkin custard - basically, pumpkin pie without the crust. It's a lot better for you.

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chibirisuchan November 30 2009, 00:57:08 UTC
Unfortunately custard's on my not-allowed list too, because the main ingredients are eggs, cream, and sugar. (I love custard! I fell in love with custard in Britain. But I just can't while I'm monkeying with the blood-cholesterol-liver-problems mess... thank you for the suggestion, though!)

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bard_linn November 30 2009, 01:18:01 UTC
http://cavecibum.blogspot.com/2007/09/pumpkin-custard.html <- what about that one? They use Egg-beaters instead.

Try googling 'low fat pumpkin recipes'?

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chibirisuchan November 30 2009, 02:02:01 UTC
oh yum, that looks good! Maybe if I used splenda instead of the brown sugar I could get away with it -- I'll have to do grams-of-carbs math (it's amazingly difficult to eat less than 100 grams of carbs in the course of a day; even celery has 5 grams per serving, and pretty much everything else is higher) but that looks like a lot of fun. Mmmmm

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aikonamika November 30 2009, 01:12:06 UTC
One of the things my mother will do with squash is to hollow it out, and then butter it up (or some sort of low-fat spread that has the same effect) and put some cinnamon on it, and bake it. Then you just scoop it out and eat it. Or at least, she does that with summer squash, and it's one of the only ways I like it. *sheepish* Not sure about other recipies off the top of my head.

Of you're still not sure, I might suggest looking for local food groups that could use donations of food, even if it's just a couple of squash. If they're the size you're saying, then I'm sure that a couple of families could be really happy with them?

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chibirisuchan November 30 2009, 02:05:00 UTC
Really? Cool - I'd never heard of doing that with summer squash before; my mom does the "bake with cinnamon" method with sweet potatoes, but summer squash usually get the savory side at our house - either the "stir fry/skillet fry" or the "chunk up and cook into spaghetti sauce with a bunch of tomatoes" option. I'll have to give the "bake with apple-cider-spices" method a go - imho very nearly everything is improved with a dose of cinnamon/nutmeg/cloves. :)

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aikonamika November 30 2009, 03:42:58 UTC
Well, I asked my mother for a few squash recipies off the top of her head, and these are what she gave me:

Squash Soup
1 32 oz. box vegetable broth
3 cups water
3-4 cups cubed squash
1 apple (peeled and diced)
½ medium onion (finely diced)
2/3 cups red lentils

In a stock pot, sauté onion in 1 Tbs. olive oil. When onions are translucent, add the stock and water and squash and apple, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes until squash is tender. Puree the cooked squash and add back to the liquid. Add the lentils and simmer for 20 minutes. Can be served with a Tbs./dollop of sour cream in each bowl (or not). Bon appétit!

Baked Squash
Cut squash into 1-inch cubes. Put in a roasting pan and drizzle with 1-2 Tbs. of olive oil. Sprinkle with fresh thyme, roast at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. (Alternately, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.)

Stuffed Squash2 medium acorn squash ( ... )

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chibirisuchan November 30 2009, 04:27:50 UTC
Yum! *scribbles down for future reference* My mom's got a similar stuffed squash recipe that involves rice, green peppers, onions, and hamburger; this one looks like the vegetarian-friendly version... :)

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jaydesummers November 30 2009, 01:13:46 UTC
Sounds like you're gonna be eating a lot of soup.

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chibirisuchan November 30 2009, 02:05:38 UTC
heh. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too...

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jaydesummers November 30 2009, 02:07:08 UTC
And you could always google squash recipies too. And hey, you can incorporate it into other things too!

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chibirisuchan November 30 2009, 02:15:24 UTC
Squash sorbet!
Squash winter-ale! (I wish to GOD I was making that up but I'm actually not!)
Squash target practice! (there's a paintball range a couple miles west...)

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armina_skitty November 30 2009, 01:35:32 UTC
Well, there's always zucchini bread spin-offs and my family and I had good luck with scooping out the flesh from the rind, mixing it with sausage and bread crumbs and cooking it in the stuffed rind. Dunno what to do with the pumpkin, but you could try that with one anyway. Or the bread. Good luck?

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armina_skitty November 30 2009, 01:41:00 UTC
Note to self: READ THE ENTIRE POST DANGINT!! I'm sure there's low-fat alternatives to sausage? Or veggie sausage, had that once, could not tell the difference. And the low-carb diet is SERIOUSLY over rated.

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chibirisuchan November 30 2009, 02:10:32 UTC
oh man, trust me, if it was up to me I would totally not be mucking around with the kind of ultra-low-carb AND ultra-low-fat diet the doc's got me on. Pretty much the only thing I can eat without getting permission and/or doing buckets of math first is a 4 oz. piece of skinless chicken breast. And I'm only allowed that once per day. @___@ It's been ...entertaining, trying to come up with stuff I'm allowed to eat that doesn't put me over *either* the low-carb *or* the low-fat restrictions -- most diets do either one or the other, this doc has me doing both, and if carbs and fats are both verboten that pretty much only leaves protein of which I'm supposed to have a maximum of 4 oz. a day... see the problem here? XD

And believe it or not, this is the *saner* version of the diet -- the first nurse I talked to was on crack, and she gave me a diet that added up to 600 calories per day, which is pretty much "you starve to death in three weeks because your body shuts down" territory. >.< At least the doctor's version is sane (1400 calories ( ... )

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sesshiyuki November 30 2009, 01:42:22 UTC
Squash orange juice is said to be pretty tasty! Juicing the squash would definitely get rid of alot of it. You could try mixing it with other fruit juices, if orange doesn't work out.

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chibirisuchan November 30 2009, 02:11:57 UTC
....*whimper* I... uh... (sweatdrop) I can't stand vegetable juice. But I'm sure it would use up a ton of squash! Between the vegetable juice antipathy and the lack of owning a juicer, though, I'm not sure if I can get this one to work. Maybe I should see if the neighbors like veg juice...

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sesshiyuki November 30 2009, 02:17:20 UTC
Hmm. How about cutting the squash and pumpkin and freeze drying or dehydrating it? That way you'll have lots more time to decide what to do with it -- if you wanted to give it to the neighbors, you could make a soup mix, with the dried squash bits? IDK.

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chibirisuchan November 30 2009, 02:30:06 UTC
I tried to unload some of the enormous squash on my neighbors during the first squash cooking spree, and they were having none of it. ^^;;; (There were silver crosses, holy water, strings of garlic, and much hissing involved, though the hissing mostly came from the cranky cat. XD)

So what's left from the Squash that Ate Brooklyn is now in chunks in several gallon bags in my freezer. So the theory's sound -- it's just that I've pretty much hit the limit of the actual physical freezer space available...

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