A Boy, A Summer Day, and Squmpkins!

In July, my son poked around my seed basket and found some acorn squash seeds.

"Can I plant them, Mom?"

"Of course."

"Ok, what kind of sun do they like?"

"They like a lot of sun."

"Ok, how big will the plant grow?"

"About the size of a zucchini plant."

So off he goes planting seeds here and there.  I mentioned that they will need to be near the soaker hose or a sprinkler.  Now, it’s October.

"Mom, I think my Squmpkins are ready!"

"Your what?"

"Squmpkins.  They look like a squash and green pumpkins!"

So, we picked them.

I thought we should try two different recipes so the kids would be able to taste two very different ways of serving up acorn squash, um, I mean squmpkins.

I baked both of them up in a 375 degree oven face down (cut in half, seeds out) for 30 minutes.  To one of them I added a little butter and brown sugar and returned to the oven face up for about 25 minutes.  The other one I made into a savory dish.  I sauted 1/2 an onion in butter till lightly browned, added in a clove of garlic (minced), 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seed and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg.  I added a little more butter and then added the chopped up mostly cooked acorn squash.  Once it was all warm and coated with the onion mixture, I added a pinch of salt and a few turns of pepper.  I spooned a little into “taster” cups for all of us.

Savory acorn squash

Sweet acorn squash

Without telling anyone, I predicted that they would all hate the savory sample and love the brown sugar sample.  To my surprise, all four kids loved both!