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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Salvaging Corn

When the first two rows of corn came ready in the garden, we had our grandson here and no time to process. After he was gone, I picked half the rows and got a bunch of corn in the freezer, but the other half of those rows sat there as hay had to be put up, last of the pickles made, etc. So, I was thinking this over-ripe corn would just go to the piggies. But then, we remembered creamed corn, so I did an experiment and made a lovely small batch. It was so good that last night I picked the rest of the over-ripe corn, boiled it, cut it off the cob, mixed in cream, milk, butter, a little sugar and a little salt, and spread the mixture out in glass pans and roasted it in a 300-degree oven for about an hour and a half, maybe 2 hours, until the liquid reduced to carmelized goodness. That will make a wonderful alternative vegetable choice this winter!

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Thanksgiving is coming - make a yummy plan for your leftovers to enjoy all winter!

This is a post from one of the recipes on our Chicken/Poultry Recipe page - a timely reminder to plan ahead to actually HAVE lots of those yummy leftovers, what to do with them to enjoy a taste of Thanksgiving all winter long, and a little advice on how you can hang on to your leftovers :-). And, should you need lard for that great pie crust, or any pies for the holidays, we have leaf lard available for rendering! Coach Stop Farm Turkey Pot Pie (or, what to do with those Thanksgiving leftovers!) Ingredients : Turkey, cut into bite-sized pieces Stuffing Mashed Potatoes Turkey Gravy Corn Peas Carrots Other veggies to taste Chicken broth or broth from turkey carcass Prep (leading up to Thanksgiving): get a very large, fresh turkey from a local provider if you can . . . as large a bird as you can fit into your oven. Make your favorite stuffing to fill this bird – make lots of stuffing and bake any extra in a casserole dish. Make m

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