Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

What We Ate

So, it’s the day after our National Day Of Gorging. (I like to call it N-DOG…) I’m sure many of you are wondering what we had for the Hartong Feast — seeing as how I am a 32-year vegetarian and the spouse is a flesh-eater.

Here’s how it went down.

First thing in the morning, I put a butternut squash in the oven to bake Do you want a recipe for all of this? Okay, here we go:

Butternut Squash Pie

Ingredients
1 medium butternut squash, split in half and with the seeds scooped out
2 eggs (organic, free-roaming, all that)
3/4 c brown sugar
1 can evaporated milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1 9-inch frozen pie crust (okay, okay… so I’m terrible at making pie crust)

Method
Preheat the oven to 350.
Oil the cut side of the squash and bake it — cut side down — on a foil-lined baking sheet for about an hour. You want the thickest part of the squash to be easily pierced with a fork.
When it’s done, take it out of the oven and — as soon as you can — peel off the skin. It should come off easily if the squash it done. Put the skinned squash into a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl and let it drain for an hour or so. You’ll be surprised by how much water comes out of it.
While the squash is draining, up the oven temperature to 425 and let it pre-heat.
Here’s the fun-with-machines part. Toss the squash into a food processor and…uh…process it until it’s totally smooth and creamy. Then add everything else. I don’t think the order makes a whit of difference. Just dump it all on in there and give it a few spins until it’s completely mixed up.
Dump the squash stuff into the pie crust and stick it in the oven. If you’ve got more squash stuff than there’s room for in the pie crust hold onto it. We’ll get to that in a second.
Bake at 425 for 15 minutes.
Okay… if you had extra filling, here’s what you do with it. Butter a small casserole dish — or even a couple of those small Pyrex custard cups — and pour the filling in there. Voila! Squash custard! Yum! Don’t put it in the oven until you’ve lowered the temp in the next step, though. The higher temp is really mainly to bake the pie crust so you don’t need it for the custard.

After the 15 minutes are up, lower the temp on the oven to 350 and if you’ve got any custard that needs baking, stick that in the oven. Let all of this bake for…oh…45 to 50 minutes. You want it to be set in the middle. That is, not jiggly.

That’s it. That’s how you make squash pie. It’s WAY WAY better than pumpkin (though, of course, pumpkin IS a squash). The butternut squash — especially once you drain the extra water out of it — has a deeper and more complex flavor than he pumpkin you get out of a can (much of which, I have read, doesn’t necessarily come from pumpkins anyway.)

Okay… so on with the menu. I made the pie. Then I got started with the stuffing. I believe I make one of the best stuffings on earth. Though, it doesn’t ever actually get stuffed in anything. I suppose you COULD stuff it in something. But why?

I think another recipe is in order.

Don’t-Stuff-It Stuffing

Ingredients
1 loaf really good bread. In past years I’ve used a nice sesame semolina bread. This year I used a crusty multi-grain.
1 large onion. Or, as I did this year, 1 medium onion and 3 medium shallots. Diced.
About 3/4 cup diced carrot
About 3/4 cup diced celery
Way more butter than you probably should — about 3/4 of a stick
1 head garlic (we’re going to roast this)
About 3/4 cup chopped pecans
1 cup vegetable broth
Salt, pepper, maybe some fresh sage if you’ve got it, or some poultry seasoning

Method
Okay… Melt all that butter in a big frying pan over medium heat and toss in the onions, carrots, and celery. Salt the veggies — oh, maybe 1 teaspoon — to help them “sweat out” their delicious vegetabley goodness into the butter. Saute until soft.
While the veggies are sauteeing, rip the bread up into bite-sized chunks. Put them in a BIG bowl. You’ll want a lot of room for stirring everything together.
Toast the pecans. I just spread them out in the little baking pan that came with my toaster oven and baked them at 250 degrees for about 20 minutes. Don’t burn!.
Roast the garlic. Here’s the method I find easiest: Peel all the skin off the cloves, wrap them tightly in some foil, bake in the toaster oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.
When the garlic’s done, smoosh it into a paste and toss it in the bowl with the bread. Put the veggies and the pecans in with the bread, too. Stir everything together really well.
Add salt and pepper to taste. And herbs. Yesterday I used some fresh sage that I’d minced. Poultry seasoning works well. You’re not an idiot — you can figure out what amount is reasonable.
Use the rest of the butter to grease a baking dish. I use a Pyrex glass 9×16. (I think those are the dimensions. Look it up.) Dump the stuffing in, spread it out, Bake this in a 400 degree oven for about half an hour. You want it crusty on top and a little mooshy in the middle.
That’s it. It’s quite delicious. You can reheat this in the microwave or in a frying pan an it’s an excellent left-over.

Okay… so. Those were the more involved dishes. I also made mashed potatoes. (Boil potatoes until soft. Drain. Add some butter and some cream. Mash with a masher. I’d avoid the electric beater, if I were you. The lumps are what makes mashed potatoes yummy.) I also whipped up some quick cranberry sauce. (People make this so complicated! Just boil 1 lb of raw cranberries with 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water. For 5 minutes. Smoosh the cranberries against the side of the pan while it’s boiling. Oh, and watch out. This stuff will spatter all over your stove if you give it even half a chance. After 5 minutes, pour it into a bowl and it will thicken up while it cools. Gotta love that natural pectin.)

Mark insisted on some dead bird so he cooked up a turkey breast. I bought him a can of turkey gravy. He’s not all that fussy.

It was an excellent meal for all concerned. We had sparkling apple cider with it — Mmmmm.

Next year, photos!