Winter Squash - Processing Stored Butternut Squash

Even in the winter here on Coach Stop Farm, we are processing foods gathered in the summer and fall. This past weekend was time to sort through the stored Butternut Squash and process them, as a few had gotten soft.

I was pleased when I cut them open to find that they had, indeed, ripened more after storage. I had had to pick them before a frost back in early October, even though most of them had green veins on them, indicating they weren't quite ripe. And, a couple I had cut into earlier had definitely not been the deep, rich orange that I like to see inside.

I decided to experiment with freezing one, cut into cubes. It yielded 4 quart-size freezer bags of chunks of squash that can be roasted or put into soups, or whatever. We shall see how they seem being used after being frozen like this.

For all the rest, they were steamed in a large roasting pan in the oven, giving me this nice bowl of cooked squash. I need to decide if I'm going to freeze this or can it, so that is yet to be done. My favorite way to eat Butternut Squash is with butter and brown sugar, with a little salt for balance, so I will be adding those ingredients to this bowl before freezing or jarring it up.

The piggies got the soft squash and all the seeds and peels from the processed squash, and they had a great time with that!

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Good Food Down on the Farm

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