Winter Squash and Roasted Vegetable Soup

Posted byNancy Taylor RobsonPosted inFood News, In The Garden, Sunday Cooking, Sustainable Living, Weekend Cooking

 

Iranian winter squash and long-necked pumpkin in September

My summer squash did diddly this year — I planted seeds three times and three times the critters ate the plants before they could get to any size at all. Fortunately, I managed to grow some winter squash, started from the saved seed of an Iranian and a long neck pumpkin of two I had bought last year from a nearby farmers’ market. I started the seeds in flats that I put up on sawhorses in the back yard in about early July. (Sawhorses were to keep the foraging groundhogs, cats, slugs, squash bugs and whatever else that  inhabits our little wildlife acre from eating the plants –AGAIN!). I planted out decent-sized plants in mid-July and by September, they were sprawled all over the west side of the garden. They produced some really great squash, which we harvested before Hurricane Sandy tromped through. And the cardboard box of Iranian squash and long neck pumpkin now stored on our unheated back porch has bucked me up no end. (I had gone into a deep, existential funk; if I couldn’t even grow ZUCCHINI for pete’s sake, what GOOD was I!?).

 

Roasted vegetables for soup and for romesco

Winter squash are theoretically easy to grow. You stick the plant in the ground in about June and harvest between 90 and 120 days later, depending on variety. In my experience here on the Upper Eastern Shore, they are squash bug magnets.  If you don’t catch those suckers early and crush ‘em – or regularly squirt them off plants with soapy spray (but crushing is better and infinitely more satisfying), you won’t have winter squash.Winter squash, a member of the Cucurbitae family that includes melons and cucumbers, is called that not because we harvest them in winter, but because many have very dry flesh and as a result store wonderfully so we can eat them all winter. (I once grew a 15-pound Blue Hubbard that I harvested in October and we ate in late May).  Not only that, they are packed with beta carotene (Vitamin A, critical to eyes and other body parts), Vitamin C, and potassium among others, and retain as much as 85% of their nutritional value over months of storage.  (Generally speaking: the darker the flesh, the harder she shell, the longer it stores and the more nutrients it retains.).

A few Iranian and long-neck pumpkin with over-the-hill cukes that are now compost

 

I’ve roasted some crescent Iranian slices for salad with arugula, toasted walnuts and goat cheese, cubed another and roasted it with paprika, garlic, maple syrup and salt and pepper then added it warm to a plate of spinach and French lentil salad. A couple of days ago, when it was chilly and blustery, I finally roasted the spare butternut our daughter dropped off months ago before she went to sea along with the very last of the mild habaneros and Big Mama tomatoes and made soup. The rest of the winter squash still sit in a cardboard box on our unheated mud porch waiting to be used throughout the winter. Yum yum yum.

Roasted Butternut and Pepper Soup

Roasted Butternut and Pepper Soup

 1 butternut or other winter squash,    halved and seeded

1 small onion peeled and halved

4 small very mild habaneros or other mildly spicy pepper

1 medium sweet pepper, halved and seeded

2 cloves garlic, unpeeled

4-5 paste tomatoes, halved ( a tin of fire-roasted tomatoes would work just as well)

olive oil for rubbing over vegetables

1 small apple, cored

1-2 tsp berbere spice

1 tsp smoked paprika

dash of Pick a Pepper sauce

salt and pepper

3 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock or water

 Grease or cooking-spray a baking sheet. Lightly oil the vegetables, rubbing them all between your hands. Put the butternut cut-side down on the sheet and surround with the rest of the vegetables and the apple. Roast in a 350-degree oven for about 45 minutes or until they’re all soft (the onion may still be a little stiff). Pull skin away from squash, tomatoes and apple (if you do this when they are hot, it helps to wear rubber gloves to keep from searing your fingers). Peel garlic. Put it all into a pot with the spices and simmer for about 15 minutes. Run a hand-blender through it, or wait until it cools some and puree it in the blender. Serve with chopped herbs, a dash of chili oil, and some crumbled feta or blue cheese. It’s really nice on a cold evening by the fire with a glass of red wine and some toasted baguette or fresh whole grain bread.

Published by Nancy Taylor Robson

I grew up sailing and building boats with my dad, married a tugboat captain, (who I'm still happily married to) and embarked on a life of adventure, challenge and fun. My first book, Woman in the Wheelhouse, told the sometimes harrowing story of working on an old coastal tugboat as cook/deckhand then worked in Mexico in the Campeche oil fields on a supply boat. I was one of the first women in the country to earn a tug operator's license. I'm the author of three other books, Course of the Waterman, which won the Fred Bonnie Prize for the novel, the historical novel, A Love Like No Other: Abigail and John Adams, A Modern Love Story, and OK Now What? A Caregiver's Guide to What Matters, which I wrote with longtime RN and hospice nurse, Sue Collins during the time my mother-in-law was moving to the end of her life. My second, Course of the Waterman, the coming of age novel of a young Eastern Shore waterman, won the Fred Bonnie award in 2004. My third book, second novel, A Love Like No Other: Abigail and John Adams, A Modern Love Story, takes readers into the lives of the new nation's strong-willed second First Lady and her stubborn, often-absent and adored husband, John, our second US President. I wrote the book because I'd spent big chunks of time raising children alone while my husband was at sea and felt an affinity for Abigail, but also looked to her life as a MUCH bigger challenge that informed and encouraged my own. My fourth book, OK Now What? A Caregiver's Guide to What Matters (Head to Wind Publishing, 2014) was written in collaboration with Sue Collins, RN and longtime hospice nurse and has received heartwarming feedback on how helpful it's been to many caregivers. A freelance writer for many years, I've published personal essays, features, maritime reporting and analysis, travel, garden and more for such places as The Washington Post, Yachting, House Beautiful, The Baltimore Sun, the Christian Science Monitor, Southern Living, Sailing, and more. I'm also a University of Maryland Master Gardener who grows and cans the family's fruits and vegetables, and a Bay-Wise program certifier. I write, sail, race sailboats (occasionally), walk the German Shepherd dogs, and cook for friends and family.

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