Well, poo!

If you don't give a flying leap about squash, you may want to skip this post...tried to upload some squash eye candy, but Blogger ain't cooperating this morning.

Sometime last autumn, I roasted a butternut squash. Peeled that sucker, cut it into chunks, a little EVOO, salt, and pepper...it tasted fine, but didn't blow my skirt up (apparently my new catchphrase...please just go with it). I remember a tinge of disappointment, because I loveloveLOVE all things autumn, and squash, in all its incarnations, certainly falls into that category. And zucchini and pumpkin are practically the only ones I love...I'm open to yellow squash, but my inlaws made a squash casserole once that was so rich, I literally have been turned off to the vegetable ever since...and that was like, 10 years ago. Gotta love that Southern cooking...sticks to your ribs and your memory.

I've had an acorn squash laying around for weeks, and since the buttercup squash looks so similar in layout, figured the flavors would be similar, so I roasted them both last night with apple chunks, then scooped 'em out and threw everything in the food processor. Added a little spice, a little brown sugar, gave it a little simmer time.

I can't get past the consistency or the odor : (

Lesson #1: if it doesn't sound hollow, it ain't ready. Well, Lesson #1 probably oughta be puree longer, but Les's headaches have been epic this week with the weather doing its overcast thing, so I didn't process it as long as I should have. But the hollow thing...I use that gauge for melons, squash, and the like, and it's solid...the acorn, after 4 weeks on my cabinet, was perfectly ripe, but the buttercup was not. Could tell by the scent and the seeds once I got it open. But I forged ahead apparently because I like wasting food. No, of course, that's not it...but when you look at a picture of a recipe and it resembles pureed sweet potatoes, and you think, I can do that, and it ends up tasting meh, which is only a step up from tasting like ass, the disappointment turns to frustration. I'm looking for recipes that my dentally challenged husband can eat, but I need to learn more about flavors and using spice in cooking before I can be competent at experimenting. And TPTB in charge of vegetables forget to tell you that many squash don't have that exciting a flavor to begin with. I find it funny that you have to hunt to find an acorn squash recipe that doesn't involve brown sugar, apples, and raisins...it's like they've given up getting anything else to match that weird void where the flavor is. Meantime, I'm stuck with a bowl of soup-like substance that looks like baby barf.

I'm being too critical...Les will try it later to be nice, and for all I know, he'll like it...he grew up with a lot of different flavors than I did. My parents, gods bless them, NEVER pushed vegetables on us much, because they'd both come from families of eat-everything-on-your-plate-no-matter-how-much-it-makes-you-gag. It wasn't until I was an adult that I started s...l...o...w...l...y...opening my mind to different vegetables beyond potatoes and corn. Now years later, I know how to make vegetables taste terrific by piling things on them that lack nutritional value, but my latest lifestyle changes have me wanting to clean up my act. Obviously, it's a work in progress.