Meatless Monday: Squash Tales

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It seems appropriate to use this post-holiday post to regale you with tales about what became of the magnificent hubbard squash we bought a couple of weekends ago! 

You may recall that our great squash weighed in at 20.79 lbs. — about the size of a small to medium turkey. My wish was to carve it into two reasonably equal pieces for roasting in the oven. Its size and thick skin caused me some angst for a few days.  

James Beard had written about hubbards chopped to pieces with hatchets in barns. A friend told me of a grandmother who had used a hammer and chisel. 

I turned to YouTube where I found a video of a man putting his hubbard into a garbage bag and dropping it onto the pavement from a second story window. I could never do that to my beauty.

This was not a problem I could tackle on my own. Here is my patient and adroit husband’s solution. 

• He gently hammered a newly sharpened cleaver along the hubbard’s lengthwise halfway point, in small taps, until he had gone around the squash’s circumference.
• Voilá! The squash neatly fell apart into two pieces.
• We then removed the seeds and lightly greased the interior with olive oil.
• With a little work we made the pieces fit upside down on two baking sheets.
• We roasted them in a 350° oven. About 1 -1/2 hours later, the squash was tender and ready to be scooped from its shell, which, by the way, was as thick as shoe leather.

We scooped out lots of squash — some 5 qts. The hubbard’s taste was as I had remembered, sweeter than acorn, not as strongly “squashy” as butternut, and less stringy than either. It was the perfect taste and consistency for the pies and casseroles I had in mind.

What became of our great squash? We ate some unadorned, fresh from the oven, and put a quart of the same in the freezer.

We transformed the remainder into two large and several small squash casseroles and two of James Beard’s fine pies — alas, all history now.

One of the two, 9 x 13" casseroles

One of the two “damned fine” pies (in the words of James Beard)

Maybe I’ll have to buy two hubbards next year… 

For more on the hubbard squash, check out my earlier post on the subject. And if you are curious about squash casserole, check out my recipe and use whatever winter squash you have on hand, about 2 cups for a single batch. 

Happy Monday! Thanks for reading.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: Vegetarian Menu Ideas

Thanksgiving Day is almost here. 

In honor of the occasion I have compiled a list of links for some posts from the past which I hope may inspire and entertain you, and perhaps provide a welcome last-minute recipe.

First are links to a variety of Thanksgiving dishes that are vegetarian friendly:

• Acorn Squash Casserole 
• Butternut Squash with Wilted Spinach and Blue Cheese 
• Celeriac 
• Golden Beets 
• Kale Stew
• Kohlrabi
• Pumpkin Cornbread
• Vegan Gravy

Second are these on food history relevant to the day.

• Celebrating the Cranberry 
• The Challenges of an Indigenous Feast 
• The History of Pumpkin Pie 

Happy Monday! Happy Thanksgiving. And thanks for reading.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: Cook It Once, Eat It All Winter

Yesterday my husband and I took a trip to the country in search of a memory from Thanksgivings long past. My heart sank when we arrived at Bishop’s Orchards and found a mere semblance of what I was seeking — in a case rather than on display, cut in half, and wrapped in plastic. When the young man in the produce section beheld my crestfallen face, he asked if he could help, and then eagerly offered to get me a whole one from the back. I think he grabbed the biggest one he could find, placed it in my arms and then asked me what I was going to do with it. Behold my holy grail — a magnificent hubbard squash! 

There were many curious onlookers as I carried my find to the checkout aisle. Checkout posed a problem; the great squash had to be positioned just so to register on the scale — 20.79 lbs.!

The hubbard (classified as a Cucurbita maxima) is a thick-skinned winter squash with origins in South America. It was a common sight in fall markets through the ’50s and ’60s, became more of a novelty item for the next few decades, and now seems to be making a  comeback. The Library of Congress states that the hubbard squash was introduced to American gardens by James J. H. Gregory of Marblehead, MA in 1857. Marblehead was a prominent port city in those days; my guess is that Mr. Gregory’s hubbards arrived on a ship. Mr. Gregory became an authority on squash, publishing Squashes: How to Grow Them in 1893.

The hubbard has a thick skin; when stored in a cool place it will maintain an excellent flavor and texture throughout the winter. James Beard wrote in his Theory and Practice of Good Cooking (1977): “We used to store the huge Hubbards in the barn, chop them into pieces with a hatchet, then seed them and bake them in the shell with butter or bacon fat. Or, we might stem them, scrape out the pulp, and whip it up with butter and a little nutmeg or cinnamon… Puréed cooked squash makes a delicious soufflé and, like pumpkin, a damned good pie.” In the small pamphlet What to Cook and How to Cook It published in 1924 by the Springvale National Bank in Springvale, Maine, Mrs. W.R.Jubb wrote, “Cut a large hubbard squash into halves and bake in a hot oven till the pulp is soft enough to remove with a spoon. Scrape it out; mix with a large cup of bread crumbs and plenty of salt and pepper, add a small cup of cream, heap the shell lightly, dot with butter, and brown; serve in the half shell.” Hmmm… I’m not sure my sister would welcome such a prominent contribution to her Thanksgiving Day table. Where would the turkey go?

Here’s my plan for this beauty. I intend to hew it in half somehow [without a hatchet but with my husband’s help], remove the seeds, and then roast it face down on metal trays in a 350° oven until it is tender. Next I will scoop out the cooked squash and turn some of into squash casserole [Click here for a photo and the link to the Meatless Monday site where my original recipe was featured.] and some more into a couple of “damned good” pies. The rest will go into plastic ziplock bags for the freezer, sized appropriately for future soups and casseroles. Any squash lover can tell you that the bulk of the prep time in any squash recipe is cooking the squash. I should have a good jump-start on my winter cooking when I’m through.

And a healthy start as well [assuming I keep all my fingers intact during the hacking]. Check out the nutritional information on hubbard squash here. Like other winter squash, the hubbard is extraordinarily rich in Vitamin A.

If you have the space in your garden and plenty of sunshine, perhaps you’d like to try growing a Blue  Hubbard. You can find seeds and customer testimonials here. The fruit matures in 110 days and weighs 15-40 pounds. There are 20-35 heirloom seeds in a packet. That’s a lot of squash!

Happy Monday! Come back next Monday for some Thanksgiving suggestions. Thanks for reading.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”