It’s Squash Season For Our Local CSA Farm Share…Here’s Delicious Ways to Use Them Up.
Our local CSA with Aspen Moon Farm brings me incredible joy throughout the year. I love it. So this year I very last minute decided to extend our weekly farm groceries by signing up for the fall share. I did this last year, but had a hard time cooking and eating all that squash. This year I am determined to use it up!
Keep reading for delicious squash recipes.
1. Delicata Squash Stir-fry
We’ve been getting many delicata squash this fall. Instead of just cutting them up into little moon shapes and sauteing them in olive oil or butter with salt and pepper, I have also been adding them to stir-fried dinners. And sometimes, they are a star in the stir-fry, like in this recipe.
Spicy Stir-fried Delicata Squash with Cashews
Ingredients
- 1 small delicata squash, washed well
- 4 scallions
- 2 cloves garlic
- ¾-inch piece ginger
- about ½ of a small hot pepper (I used a habanero)
- Safflower oil
- ⅓ cup raw cashews
- Salt
- 1 tablespoon white wine or mirin
- 1-2 teaspoons soy sauce
- White or brown rice, for serving
To make this recipe, visit the Big Girls Small Kitchen blog.
2. Baked Farro and Butternut Squash.
I found this recipe in one of my Ina Garten cookbooks, and was drawn to it for two reasons. One was that I just happened to have a bag of farro in my fridge, which I had on a whim months ago, and hadn’t cooked yet. The other is that it involves bacon. Since I loosely follow a paleo diet, I knew I’d be fine fore-going the recommended parmesan cheese if yummy bacon bits would be in the dish. And, we knew the hotel would have breakfast for us.
Baked Farro and Butternut Squash
Ingredients
3. Coconut Butternut Squash Soup.
I’ve made a lot of butternut squash soups in my day. Bored of the standard flavor, this winter I’ve really enjoyed butternut squash soups with coconut and curry flavors added to them. I chose to make this soup because it helped get rid of several fall CSA share items, like onions, kale, and (of course) the butternut squash. And it looked pretty tasty. And it was!
Coconut Butternut Squash Soup
Ingredients
- 1 large butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil or other vegetable oil
- 1 large yellow or sweet white onion, chopped
- 1 medium apple, any variety, peeled and diced
- 2 cups prepared vegetable broth, or 2 cups water with 1 vegetable bouillon cube
- 2 teaspoons good-quality curry powder
- 2 teaspoons grated fresh or jarred ginger, or more, to taste
- Pinch of ground nutmeg or allspice
- 1 14-ounce can light coconut milk
- Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Garnish
- 2 medium red onions, quartered and thinly sliced
- 1 good-size bunch kale (about 10 to 12 ounces)
To learn how to prepare this soup, visit the NY Times Cooking website.
4. Acorn Squash with Kale and Sausage.
I like this recipe for a couple reasons. One, I love sausage. If squash sounds boring (which it really does a little bit to me), things like bacon or sausage really help me stand behind this veggie. Second, this one also uses up a fair amount of fall CSA veggies…the acorn squash, leek, garlic, and kale. I liked this one so much that I am wishing I had a couple acorn squash at my home right now.
Acorn Squash with Kale and Sausage
Ingredients
- 2 medium acorn squash, halved down the middle, seeds removed
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- Olive oil cooking spray
- 3 teaspoons olive oil, divided
- 8 ounces hot Italian turkey sausage, casings removed
- 1 large leek, white and light green parts only, halved and sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 4 cups tightly packed torn kale
- 1/3 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
- 2 tablespoons grated fresh Parmesan
- 2 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs
I found this recipe on the epicurious food blog.
5. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
I’m including pumpkins in my squash recipes, since it is my understanding that pumpkins are a type of squash. Even if this isn’t true, I am going with it since it is possible to slice off a finger cutting up a butternut squash or a pumpkin.
At any rate, I normally get a couple of baking pumpkins in my farm share. Instead of making a pumpkin pie out of the pureed pumpkin, I decided to make cookies. I found this recipe upon looking up gluten-free, vegan pumpkin desserts, and I chose this particular one simply because I had the ingredients at home. Except for the coconut sugar. I substituted 1 cup of real white unhealthy sugar–that is the most sugar I have put in anything in many, many months! And I didn’t have the Enjoy Life chocolate chips–I just used good old Nestle Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips (more sugar!!!).
When I cooked these, I took them out as soon as they set, but they were pretty soft still. And they did not harden when they cooled down–these cookies were more like a muffin in cookie form. The texture was slightly odd, but my youngest son and I enjoyed them anyway.
Paleo Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup smooth almond butter unsweetened
- 1/2 cup organic pumpkin puree
- 1/2 cup organic coconut sugar
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 1/3 cups blanched almond flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- pinch fine grain sea salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 cup Enjoy Life brand dark chocolate morsels*
Hankering dessert? Find this recipe on the Paleo Running Momma website.
6. Butternut Squash Pizza
Okay, I have to be honest. I liked this pizza, but anything called pizza is pretty delicious to me since I stopped eating dairy and gluten. My husband, on the other hand, was not a fan, and normally he’ll willingly eat anything that I cook. This was a labor-intense dish for me, but I would make it again…probably on a weekend day instead of a weeknight evening. And, I used Domata Living Mix Pizza Crust, which is a gluten-free, just add water, pizza dough mix.
Vegan Butternut Squash Pizza with Apples & Pecans
Ingredients
For the butternut squash sauce
- 4 cups cubed butternut squash (approx 1/2 of a medium 3-pound squash)
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium clove garlic, peeled
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme)
- Pinch red pepper flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt + more to taste
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper + more to taste
For the pizza
- 1 pound (16 ounces) homemade or store-bought pizza dough
- 1 batch butternut squash sauce
- 2 medium apples
- 1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
- 1/3 cup pecans, chopped
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- A couple pinches of kosher salt or sea salt
- A few leaves fresh thyme (optional)
To cook up this pizza, visit the Kitchen Treaty food blog.
7. Baked Delicata Squash
So this isn’t quite as much as a main dish as the other recipes (minus the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies), but I served it with a salad and chicken breast, and it was a pretty good use of a delicata squash thanks to the cheese. (I omitted the heavy cream since I didn’t have time to make a vegan substitute out of cashews.)(And don’t ask why I decided to eat the parmesan cheese, although I think it is really because this colder weather has me succumbing to heavier, richer foods.)
Baked Delicata Squash with Cream & Parmigiano
Ingredients
- 2 delicata or acorn squashes (2 1/2 pounds to 3 pounds / 1.2 to 1.4 kg), halved lengthwise, seeded, each half cut in half crosswise to yield a total of four pieces per squash
- 1/4 cup / 60 mL heavy cream
- Fine sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/4 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese
