Would the {Real] Pumpkin Please Stand Up?

Oh there you are, I see you now- butternut squash. Call me crazy, call me whatever you want, but honestly, my entire life I thought you were the real pumpkin. Then I tasted real pumpkin and decided that nope, butternut squash beats pumpkin all to pieces.

I know it's January and we should be eating soup, especially since it's been 'so bloody cold' (said with your best British accent) around here.......or then we should at least be eating fat-free or low carb or something along the line of January diets. But I finally dug my butternut squash out of my basement, and proceeded to 'work them up' (which has to be the worst Dutchy phrase ever!) last week.

Unlike The Pioneer Woman, I do not have step-by-step beautifully photographed instructions and cute little puns. I did have a messy kitchen, and I did process 20 pints of that beautiful orange stuff.

Friday morning, while my children were attempting to get their tousled heads out of bed, I was washing and scrubbing squash. I cut them in half, dug the seeds out with my fingers, after discovering that goes better than a silly spoon. Then I placed them cut side down on my trusty cookie sheets, poured a cup of water on the pan, covered them with foil, and baked them several hours, until my fork could easily poke them. While they baked, we ate breakfast, did school, started laundry, settled fights, and sighed deeply because it was Friday.

After they were soft, I dumped them in a large bowl to cool, and repeated the process.I even have a picture to prove this.

As they cooled, I scooped the pulp out of the shell. I took my stick blender and blended the whole mess together, to make sure there weren't any chunks. Then I put the squash into pint jars.

I filled my pressure cooker (Christmas present, Thanks, Mom!) and started processing the squash. Then I took all those seeds I'd been saving, which was about 4 cups, and tried something new. I washed them, and tried to get all the orange pulp-y stuff off of the seeds. I tossed them with 6 T. melted butter, 2 tsp. seasoning salt, 4 tsp. Worcestershire sauce, and 1/2 tsp. garlic salt. I spread them on 2 cookie sheets and baked them for one hour at 300 degrees, stirring every 15 minutes. After the third time stirring, I was really expecting a total flop. They still weren't crunchy and badly needed salt. I shook a lot more salt on them and popped them back in the oven. 15 minutes later, oh my! Crunchy delicious squash seeds came out of my oven!

Today it was time to try to copycat Panera Bread's Autumn Squash Soup. I found a recipe on Pinterest, but who wants to follow a recipe? So I tweaked it and halved it and came up with this. My own delicious version! I made my children and dear husband taste the soup and they ALL, I repeat, ALL wrinkled their noses, which is why I halved the recipe in the first place. I expected as much. But don't go with their opinion, they aren't the adventurous sort.

Saute onion in olive oil, stir in 1 cup chicken broth, 2 cups pumpkin squash, 3/4 cup apple cider, 3/4 cup cream, 1 T. honey, 1 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon. Before the mixture was hot, I put it all in my blender. then back in the kettle until it was bubbling. And I enjoyed my soup while my family ate leftover pizza. My soup recipe made about 4 small servings.

And since we're talking about pumpkin squash anyway, here are two more of my favorite recipes.

Pumpkin White Hot Chocolate
 5 cups whole milk
1 cup white chocolate chips
4 tsp. cocoa powder
1 T. instant coffee
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup pumpkin squash puree
1 tsp. cinnamon
Put everything together in blender. Blend until smooth. Pour into kettle and heat over low heat, stirring often.

Pumpkin Pancakes

2 eggs
2 cups flour
2 T. brown sugar
2 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 c. melted butter
1 1/2 c. milk
1 c. squash puree

Heat griddle to 375 degrees. Beat eggs until fluffly, add the rest of ingredients just until smooth. Grease griddle with butter, fry pancakes until done, serve with real maple syrup.

On another note, we survived the holidays, and had a real mix of work and play, family time, sleeping in, and getting ready for our chickens. On January 5, we officially became chicken farmers. It's been an adventure so far,  to say the least.

We're back into a school routine, the farmer husband is at home full-time now, the honey-do list is as long as his arm, we're all healthy, some parts of life really stink, but we're all still learning about Grace, and our Father's heart toward us. And we have nothing to complain about; only an abundance of blessings to count.


And now, to all, a good day!