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| Vegetable of the Week: Winter Squash |
A few months ago a fan of the Oak Park Farmers Market began an experiment to try to draw attention to some of the lesser-known, high nutrient produce available during a particular season.
So far the Vegetable of the Week project has featured peppers, carrots and squash.
With each veggie, Bill Sieck creates a veggie awareness sheet chock full of nutritional information, preparation tips and/or details about the food’s origin, fun facts and historical uses. (The sheets can be found right where farmers sell the veggies.)
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| Squash & Apple Bake – Before |
For our first featured veggie, the pepper, I learned that Europeans first named the “pepper,” which originated in Central and South America. I also learned that China is the world’s largest grower of peppers (except the ones our local growers bring to the market), producing 14 million metric tons in 2007.
Next up was the carrot, which the sheet told me probably comes from Afghanistan and was named after the Greek word “karotin” because of its hornlike shape.
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| Squash & Apple Bake: After |
The latest featured item was from a week ago, the winter squash, which is in the market in abundance in many many forms. I already was a fan of squash, but I didn’t know squash, which is fat free and sodium free, is commonly recommended by dieticians in cholesterol-controlling and weight-reduction programs.
But Bill knew that all this information wouldn’t sell the veggies as much as an extra bonus, which happens to be my favorite part of the info sheet: recipes.
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| Use any leftover seeds for snacking. |
Many of them come from local farm groups, but Bill has had some success collecting seasonal recipes from local chefs, including Chef Vales from Winberie’s (roasted carrots with honeydill glaze), and Robbin O’Harrow of the new vegetarian restaurant in Oak Park, MUNCH (roasted red bell pepper gazpacho).
I’ve not been doing nearly enough cooking lately, so I haven’t been experimenting with new recipes until I had some free time today.
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| Bon appetit! |
Here’s my first attempt, sort of a practice run
for a dish that I think would make a nice side for a Thanksgiving or Christmas family gathering. The best part, it was easy peasy to make.
Squash & Apple Bake
2 lbs butternut squash, sliced lengthwise, seeded and cut into 1/2 inch slices (reserve seeds for roasting)
2 cooking apples, cored, peeled & but into 1/2 inch slices
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/4 cup melted butter
1 Tbs flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (the original recipe called for mace)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees; arrange squash then apple slices in 12x8x2 baking dish. Combine remaining ingredients and spoon over top. Cover tightly with foil and bake for and hour and 15 minutes or until fork tender. (Original recipe from the Cook County Farm Bureau)
Top with roasted butternut squash seeds.
To roast seeds: clean and pat dry the seeds, lightly coat with olive oil and sea salt, then bake on a single layer cookie sheet for 20 minutes at 325 degrees.
For the squash recipe above, I sprinkled cinnamon sugar over the cooled seeds.
Virtual Farmgirl 