Kabocha Squash

This morning I nearly bought more squash. My favorite potato and dry farmed tomato farmer had a big display of orange kabocha and another farmer had a celadon ugly Hubbard that I was smitten with. They had my name on them but I couldn't leave them locked in the car all day and carrying them would have been over the edge for even me.

Instead I bought dry goods; cornmeal, popcorn, almonds and poppy seeds from Full Belly Farm. Poppy seeds! Can you believe it? What in the hell am I going to do with poppy seeds? But I felt so grown up buying them. Like a woman with a Viking Range I dropped them in my borrowed Puffins cereal bag and shoulders held high handed the man a twenty.

Maybe I could add them to the kabocha squash cake with brown sugar cream recipe that Deborah from Canvas Ranch sent in our CSA bag this week. It sounds good and what's a few seeds going to hurt? They will make the cake my own.

All joking aside eating local this week has been a breeze. We are back in the swing of putting a face to our food. I shopped at my first market in the rain on Tuesday. Hardly a real rain but a gentle introduction. If it were really raining I'm afraid I'd stay in the office. And starve.

The cute guy and I had butternut squash burritos with Rancho Gordo pebble beans one night. "Does food get any better?" I asked.

"Mhgmghmhgmghbmh," he answered. I took that as a no.

And we had a hearty not quite winter salad that was heavy on the chicken, cheese and pumpkin seeds pan roasted with minced jalapenos and sea salt. Not a shred of which was wasted.

But I'm in a quandary about how much squash we can eat this winter. It's not like stocking up the freezer where once it was full I was done. I have a hundred places to store squash. And that scares me.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, you've let the cat out of the bag. You still have my puffin bag! My friend DD bought that for me because I love puffins. You "borrowed" it and said I'd get it back at the end of the summer, and with the arrival of such a bounty of squash I would say fall is very firmly entrenched. I'll trade you the puffin bag for another one I bought made from recycled plastic but you'd swear it was cloth, with a picture of sunflower on it. I like my puffins. I surely want to support you in your local food purchases, but it's time for the puffin bag to come home. :~)

I love the blog, look forward to your stories and my lessons in each one.

Kale for Sale said...

I think it's more like bird out of the cage! Darn it. That's a good bag.

Anonymous said...

I'm totally jealous that you're able to get your hands on local poppy seeds! That's so cool!

Kale for Sale said...

Nicole - I thought it was pretty cool too. I made muffins and still have enough seeds left to plant a field.