Pumpkins, squashs and assorted marrowy type vegetables

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santaman2000

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Jan 15, 2011
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Squash is like Zucchini, isn´t it?

Zucchini Frittatas are great, and it´s easy to vary the ingredients :)

Zucchini is one variety of squash. Pumpkin is another variety. My favorite is ordinary, old fashioned Yellow Crook-Neck squash.
 

santaman2000

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Jan 15, 2011
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......I might see if I can find an spaghetti squash. I must admit I have been wondering if the ones I bought were really ever meant to be particularly edible or just decorative in Autumn/harvest festival/hallowe'en type things :dunno:.........

Most varieties are edible, and even good. However you're partially correct in that the pumpkins in particular are cultivated more with jack-o-lanterns in mind than actual food use. Much of what you find in the stores are therefore not as good as they should be.
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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The Jack-o-lantern Hallowe'en pumpkin sure tastes good to me. However, In a very large market garden last September, I saw the next iteration of edible pumpkin = little. Maybe 8-10" in diameter, same bright, ripe orange. They're called "sugar babies." My goodness are they sweet, raw and baked! Must see if I can find seed this winter and get some started indoors to plant out.

Spaghetti squash is good.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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It must be a different variety. The ones I have bought are literally all the texture of cooked melon with no taste and definitely no sweetness.
All the flavour needs to be added.

It's not lack of familiarity with 'plain' food either. I genuinely like mashed spuds, turnips, and plain steamed broccoli, cauliflower and the like.

:dunno:

Not been a great success this squashy thing. The rest of the family will try it only because I've cooked it, but none of us are keen on it.

I wonder if it's the climate; sunshine is often a rarity here.

M
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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Yeah, Toddy, you might be out of luck. Sugar Babies are grown in high mountain desert gardens (aka square miles) with 40+C temps every day in summer.
I still believe that the genetic selection for sugar ought to work (better than nothing) in all kinds of places.
Microclimate might be the key to success.
So many of the squashes are so stodgy here at 53N, even in a HOT mountain valley.
Degree-Days trumps everything.
But think I'll try to give them a whirl next summer.
 

Arya

Settler
May 15, 2013
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Yup, zucchini, courgettes & marrows are basically the same thing.

Toddy I found my Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Banana Chutney Filling recipe, but its a little long to type out on the phone. Will post it up tomorrow.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

Oh God, I feel like a neanderthal. Several types of squash? have only ever seen that green regular type. I sense some Google time for me tonight, haha!
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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Oh God, I feel like a neanderthal. Several types of squash? have only ever seen that green regular type. I sense some Google time for me tonight, haha!

The green stuff is NOT the "regular" squash. That would be the yellow stuff (more or less the same size)

yellow+squash.JPG
 

tsitenha

Nomad
Dec 18, 2008
384
1
Kanata
Toddy, we have something very similar(I think) it is served cold as a salad. Spinach is used along with kale, actually spinach is the main green. The cranberries are sun dried.
Spaghetti squash is served looking like angel pasta, small dia. longer slivers of squash. The "noodles" are not quite as long as spaghetti. (just like above from Santamam2000) My grandmother made a lot of meals in different styles with squash or pumpkin but most of them are now lost to us.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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.....My grandmother made a lot of meals in different styles with squash or pumpkin but most of them are now lost to us.

I hate when that happens. One of my cousins is now trying to put together a cookbook of old family recipes from my grandparents generation.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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Here's a dish my daughter made tonight with a combination of spaghetti squash and mashed butternut squash:

12316118_1685886085031487_2674363150926059221_n.jpg
 

Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
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Toddy, don't know if you watch Rick Stein? The episode I'm having a deco at he's arrived in Istanbul and eating a dish I had over there which is very tasty.
Layer thin slices of pumpkin in a baking dish. In another bowl place a heap of sliced onions and sprinkle over some sea salt. Them like you're crumbing a flour mix scrunch the onions and salt to mix and break up the onions structure a bit. Next a couple of tbsp's of salcha, (it's like tomato puree, but the Turkish version is sundried - you could add a smidge of smoked paprika to try to emulate it). Then a tbsp of flour and a heap of fresh ground black pepper. Continue to mix all this with your hands. Spread the mix over the sliced pumpkins and liberally drizzle with olive oil. Bake in a hot oven for about 40 minutes. He served it topped with some thick yogurt and a drizzle of chilli oil. Dead simple but I remember it being very good, was surprised to see it on a telly show but it brought back nice memories of sitting by a river eating it and a whole table of food by candle light with the prettiest girl on the planet.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
 
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santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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Mary I thought you might like this dish (Chicken Parmesan Stuffed Spaghetti Squash) Just a few substitutions and precautions can make it gluten free:
1)substitute GF flour for regular flour
2)substitute corn flakes or GF cracker crumbs for the seasoned bread crumbs (add poultry seasoning)
3)be sure the Marinara sauce is GF

Anyway, on to the dish https://youtu.be/7HXFjP6miJM Not sure how to make it vegetarian though.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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Funny this should come up again :) I opened up one of the mini pumpkin things this afternoon, scooped out the seeds, oiled both halves of the pumpkin, rubbed one with salt and the other with an Indian spice mix and baked them along side the apple sponge.

I washed the seeds and was just going to throw them to the birds, then thought, och why not ? the oven's on anyway, so drizzled them with oil and a wee shake of salt, and popped them in too.

Popping was the right word… the damned things exploded all over the oven :rolleyes: Himself said they were going off like popcorn, and the skins which folks kept telling me were edible were like the skins on pistachio nuts and most definitely not edible. The tiny wee green inard bits were okay though, but what a footer and a clean up.
Not doing that again. :eek:

The pumpkin/squashes were okay, just a bit like salty or spicy mush though.

I don't think I'm much of a fan of these to be honest. I'm going to use up what's left to thicken curries.

M
 

Goatboy

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Jan 31, 2005
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Pop some baking parchment over the seeds M. Specially if you weight the corners it stops them running free 'round the oven. That or do them in a casserole dish with a lid. Am partial to pumpkin seeds, like them on the top of my loaves when I bake bread. Nom, nom, nom as is the parlance of the young people on the internet one believes.

Sent from a Kindled Fire in a wood somewhere.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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I thought that if I ever did them again, I'd just do them like popcorn in pot with a decent lid.

I like pumpkin seeds as munchies and on muesli bars, but these ones just were too hard shelled I reckon. Tiny wee slivers of seeds inside them too.

We live and learn :D

M
 

xylaria

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
I find most squashes have not great seeds for eating, the pepo maximas have good size seeds (atlantic giant , turban cheese wheel) but the average good eater have seeds too fiddly to bother. For tasteless squashes cubed and fried with lorne sausage or holumi works or curried with a dahl. I have one two year old jar or courette mincemeat eleft in the cupboard now. This year i grew kuri onion squash and little stripey one called sweet dumpling. i made pumkin pie with the onion squash, the kids that would try it spat it out becuse of the texture.
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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Everything changes as you move from one species to another. Our big, orange Halowe'en pumpkins have rather thin-walled seeds = OK to eat it all. As big slabs with cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar and butter, they baked up just fine as kid-pleasers.
 

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