The CookingBites recipe challenge: hard squash

SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
I do know I have 1 of last winters harvest from my own garden, if it has survived 3 weeks with me not checking on it
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It didn't survive. It met me at the back-door having died, run along the worktop, dripped down the counter, the counter doors, pooled across the floor and finally followed the gradient out of the house... the remains were too liquid to even pick up without it collapsing.

:cry:
 
medtran49 said:
I enjoy a slice or 2 of pumpkin pie on occasion, as long as it's made from roasted fresh sugar pie pumpkin and doesn't have too much cinnamon; but a slice or 2 is enough until the next year, and i don't miss it if I don't get it. Can't stand the taste of canned pumpkin (even though most is some kind of hard squash supposedly). To be fair though, the only canned vegetable I will eat is hominy or rarely corn, and tomatoes of course, though they are technically fruit. Plus, i have a mild allergy to pumpkin and it makes me itch. Lastly and certainly mostly, the pervasiveness of pumpkin pie spice smells everywhere that started a few weeks ago. I get to the point of almost gagging in some places.

Hard squashes don't taste like pumpkin does to me, or Craig either for that matter.
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Ah - I think I'd hate canned pumpkin and pumpkin pie too. Anyway the crown pumpkin I bought seems to be called a crown squash in other listings. 🤷‍♀️
 
I thought of one idea, but it would use zucchini, which is a squash, but I don't think it qualifies as a hard squash.

CD
 
First up, in the "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" category:

Recipe - Pumpkin Sidecar

Well, I said up top that this ingredient choice would give me the chance to find a squash recipe I actually liked, not just tolerated, and I landed on one first time round.

Pumpkin Sidecar

Pumpkin Sidecar


Pumpkin Sidecar

Pumpkin Sidecar


I didn't have high hope for this. Frankly, it sounds rather...disgusting. A pumpkin cocktail? Made with pureed pumpkin? Color me highly doubtful.

I think there's such a strong association with pumpkin and pumpkin spice, that even though the ingredients don't include much like that (aside from the garnish), it's almost impossible to divorce the two, and I imagined a somewhat sickening-sweet, milkshake-thick concoction.

Nope!

You know that beautifully...clean smell when first cut into a pumpkin? It's almost overpowering, but it smells really, really good (at least to me), because it's such a pure note.

That's what's at the core of this cocktail - impossibly clean pumpkin, lightly enhanced by the other additions. The undertone of orange is especially nice.

This is a real winner, and MrsT agrees:

<handed drink>
"Smells...like something." <wrinkles nose and sips>
"Ok...this is good. Really good."

One little side note: make sure you double-strain this, so you don't end up with a glass of pulpkin (pumpkin pulp). Just go right from the cocktail strainer to another mesh strainer to the glass. You'll likely need a little spoon to push the pumpkin around in order to get all the fluid out.
 
Butternut bisque, mussels & girolles - recipe to follow tomorrow...

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