{"id":15962,"date":"2017-11-01T01:10:40","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T06:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=16151"},"modified":"2017-10-29T00:11:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-29T05:11:10","slug":"the-kitchen-witch-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2017\/11\/01\/the-kitchen-witch-27\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kitchen Witch"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Favorite Butternut Squash<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I love squash. I love <\/span>all <\/i><\/span>varieties of squash \u2013 zucchini and summer squash \u2013 acorn squash \u2013 spaghetti squash \u2013 buttercup squash \u2013 delicata squash \u2013 hubbard \u2013 pumpkin \u2013 just to name a few! There are <\/span>so <\/i><\/span>many kinds and <\/span>so <\/i><\/span>many ways of preparing this versatile vegetable \u2013 its Latin name is Cucurbita \u2013 that you could literally eat squash at every meal every day for a year and never repeat yourself. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Acorn squash is usually on my Thanksgiving table. My son loves it with brown sugar and butter. I often also cook up some butternut squash. I <\/span>adore <\/i><\/span>butternut squash. It\u2019s really easy to cook and you can prepare it ahead \u2013 even days ahead \u2013 and reheat it just before serving. You can put off deciding what seasonings you want until the last minute. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Butternut squashes come in all sizes. The ones I bought were smaller, but generally they\u2019re bigger than this. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

You want to wash them off, then cut off the end from each side and then slice them length-wise. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

After they are sliced, scoop out the seeds and discard. Brush with olive oil or melted butter and place face down in a small pan. Cover with a piece of aluminum foil. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

Put into a preheated oven. I usually set the oven at 400 and then turn it down to 350. If the squash are large, I roast them for about an hour, but these guys were smaller and only took 40 minutes. You\u2019ll know by the lovely aroma of baking squash filling your home. Another clue is the way the skin looks when it\u2019s done \u2013 it gets all shiny and papery. You should be able to take a fork and prick the meat of the squash easily with no resistance when it\u2019s fully cooked. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

I let the squash cool a bit because it\u2019s always wicked hot when it first comes out of the oven. But as soon as I can handle the baked gourds, I scoop out the orange goodness into a bowl. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

Now for the seasoning. As I said before, my son James prefers butter and brown sugar with most winter squashes. I know some people who want \u201cpumpkin spice\u201d \u2013 the mixture of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger \u2013 no matter if the dish is supposed to be savory or sweet \u2013 I am not one of those people. If I have a squash or pumpkin soup, I do not want it to taste like a watery pumpkin pie! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

These are the seasoning I like in my mashed butternut squash:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

I put about a quarter of a teaspoon of each in, along with a dash of salt and pepper and mix well.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

For Thanksgiving, I will garnish it with sour cream but I didn\u2019t have any on hand so I just added more butter and it was AWESOME. This is <\/span>definitely <\/i><\/span>my favorite way of making butternut squash! I didn\u2019t even miss the sour cream! This recipe was supposed to make at least two servings \u2013 maybe three \u2013 but as you can see \u2013 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I ATE IT ALL. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

SO \u2013 Happy Thanksgiving and Brightest Blessings! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

**<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

About the Author:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

Polly MacDavid<\/b>\u00a0lives in Buffalo, New York at the moment but that could easily change, since she is a gypsy at heart. Like a gypsy, she is attracted to the divinatory arts, as well as camp fires and dancing barefoot. She has three cats who all help her with her magic.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Her philosophy about religion and magic is that it must be thoroughly based in science and logic. She is Dianic Wiccan and she is solitary.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

She blogs at\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>silverapplequeen.wordpress.com<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>. She writes about general life, politics and poetry. She is writing a novel about sex, drugs and recovery.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Favorite Butternut Squash I love squash. I love all varieties of squash \u2013 zucchini and summer squash \u2013 acorn squash \u2013 spaghetti squash \u2013 buttercup squash \u2013 delicata squash \u2013 hubbard \u2013 pumpkin \u2013 just to name a few! There are so many kinds and so many ways of preparing this versatile vegetable \u2013 its Latin name is Cucurbita \u2013 that you could literally eat squash at every meal every day for a year and never repeat yourself. Acorn squash is usually on my Thanksgiving table. My son loves it with brown sugar and butter. I often also cook up some butternut squash. I adore butternut squash. It\u2019s really easy to cook and you can prepare it ahead \u2013 even days ahead \u2013 and reheat it just before serving. You can put off deciding what seasonings you want until the last minute. Butternut squashes come in all sizes. The ones I bought were smaller, but generally they\u2019re bigger than this. You want to wash them off, then cut off the end from each side and then slice them length-wise. After they are sliced, scoop out the seeds and discard. Brush with olive oil or melted butter and place face down in a small pan. Cover with a piece of aluminum foil. Put into a preheated oven. I usually set the oven at 400 and then turn it down to 350. If the squash are large, I roast them for about an hour, but these guys were smaller and only took 40 minutes. You\u2019ll know by the lovely aroma of baking squash filling your home. Another clue is the way the skin looks when it\u2019s done \u2013 it gets all shiny and papery. You should be able to take a fork and prick the meat of the squash easily with no resistance when it\u2019s fully cooked. I let the squash cool a bit because it\u2019s always wicked hot when it first comes out of the oven. But as soon as I can handle the baked gourds, I scoop out the orange goodness into a bowl. Now for the seasoning. As I said before, my son James prefers butter and brown sugar with most winter squashes. I know some people who want \u201cpumpkin spice\u201d \u2013 the mixture of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger \u2013 no matter if the dish is supposed to be savory or sweet \u2013 I am not one of those people. If I have a squash or pumpkin soup, I do not want it to taste like a watery pumpkin pie! These are the seasoning I like in my mashed butternut squash: I put about a quarter of a teaspoon of each in, along with a dash of salt and pepper and mix well. For Thanksgiving, I will garnish it with sour cream but I didn\u2019t have any on hand so I just added more butter and it was AWESOME. This is definitely my favorite way of making butternut squash! I didn\u2019t even miss the sour cream! This recipe was supposed to make at least two servings \u2013 maybe three \u2013 but as you can see \u2013 I ATE IT ALL. SO \u2013 Happy Thanksgiving and Brightest Blessings! ** About the Author: Polly MacDavid\u00a0lives in Buffalo, New York at the moment but that could easily change, since she is a gypsy at heart. Like a gypsy, she is attracted to the divinatory arts, as well as camp fires and dancing barefoot. She has three cats who all help her with her magic. Her philosophy about religion and magic is that it must be thoroughly based in science and logic. She is Dianic Wiccan and she is solitary. She blogs at\u00a0silverapplequeen.wordpress.com. She writes about general life, politics and poetry. She is writing a novel about sex, drugs and recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}