Winter Squash: Where the Hell Have You Been All My Life?

(Photo: Dunbar Gardens)

Curious about the health benefits of butternut, acorn, hubbard, turban, kabocha, and other winter squashes? Need some recipes?

And yes, I believe I am the last health and fitness blogger on the planet to discover that the big piles of gourdy-looking objects on display this time of year at the grocery store are actually edible food items. I thought they were table decorations!

As it turns out, winter squashes are tasty. They are not nearly as caloric as you might think, given the gloriously sweet & starchy nature of them. Though some are scary-looking, they can actually be easy to prepare if you're lazy busy, and they have tons of sneaky health benefits. How did I manage to miss them all these years?


So if you haven't already read a million other posts about sweet winter squashes, or if the posts you read had too much actual information in them and not enough swearing or gratuitous cat pictures (always a problem in nutrition posts, don't you think?) then it looks you've come to the right place!

Photo: aturkus

Winter Squashes and Nutrition:

The "World's Healthiest Foods" website has the full scoop on the nutritional benefits of winter squashes, so I'll steal their content pass along some of their info.

For example, winter squash has:

• Craploads of alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin, and beta-cryptoxanthin.
• Seeds that you can lightly roast (160-170°F for 15-20 minutes) that have lots of linoleic and oleic acid.
• Particularly virtuous kinds of starch--pectins--that are "specially structured polysaccharides that in winter squash often include special chains of D-galacturonic acid called homogalacturonan."  Um, yeah. Anyway, these are good because they have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic and insulin-regulating properties.  And hooray for all that!

But WHF warns you to make sure you get 'em organic, as they are superstars at sucking up nasty soil contaminants, like PAHs.

Squash: A Better Calorie Bargain?

Starches have gotten a lot of bad press nutritionally (unless you're looking at the whole resistant starch issue; a topic for another time).  But check out the nutritional differences when Fitsugar compares squash vs sweet potatoes, and The Washington Post compares kabocha squash and regular potatoes. If you're trying to save a few more calories for inexcusably big slices of cake and big honking cheeseburgers extra portions of healthy fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins, then squash may make an excellent potato substitute.

Squash Recipes

Some of these big-ass squash look so intimidating it's hard to think what you might be able to do with them.

Photo: Rochelle Hartman

But if you'd rather eat them than disguise them, there are lots of ideas out there!

What Crabby Did

I peeled a butternut squash (pain in the ass, by the way), cut it up, & brushed lightly with olive oil. Baked for over an hour at 350 until the pieces were soft, then mashed them with some chicken broth and nutmeg. Easy-peasey, and tasted good!

Photo:  BourgeoisBee

OK, so that wasn't exactly helpful.  Sorry, frowny cat. But I believe that's a summery squash you're dealing with there anyway.  Hmm, is there anyone else out there who has some ideas for winter squash?

Pathetic Bid for Attention From Reaching Out to New Friends at... the Dole Health Summit!

So if you google squash recipes, especially if you have a particular kind in mind, it's not like there's any shortage.  But in honor of the upcoming Dole "Health and Happiness Summit," (which I'm sure you'll be hearing about later, or I'll never get invited to another blogging conference again),  I thought I'd check out the blogs of some of those folks I'll be meeting. Do any of them have any winter squash recipes?  As it turns out, many of 'em do! However, apologies to @APSandy, who is an awesome twitter person to follow but whose blog I couldn't find, and Tish from Luv and Kiwi who has an excellent blog but saw me coming and hid all her winter squash recipes where I couldn't find them and steal them.

So in no particular order:

Check out the fabulous FBG's  Acorn Squash Dip with Roasted Pumpkin Seeds!

Over at Meals and Miles, Meghann gussies up some hubbard squash by adding hummus, cheese, apples, and other tasty ingredients.

At Bookieboo's ginormous and helpful site, there's a tasty looking recipe for Stuffed Acorn Squash with Quinoa that looks really, really tasty.

Iowa Girl Eats has a recipe and nearly-pornographic pictures of a Butternut Squash Lasagna. Visit if you dare.

Tina at Carrots and Cake tried out Hungry Girl's Cheesy Butternut Bake, adding amusing commentary and a picture of a seriously adorable dog.


Over at The Token Fat Girl, yet another great blog, you can find a quick recipe for Recipe for butternut squash fries. And doesn't the world need more non-guilt inducing fries?

And finally, at Run Eat Repeat, there's a super-easy recipe for pumpkin creme which makes a creme to put on waffles. (Is pumpkin a winter squash? What the hell, close enough.  But dangit Monica, with your tasty breakfast pictures.... suddenly I'm in dire need of a waffle!)

BTW, I've been offline much more than I thought this week, what with our cross-country move and the odious unpacking, storing, schlepping, errands and chores exciting organizational challenges and functional fitness opportunities that's brought.  And I realize I may be a bit distracted by the Dole thing as it's my first blog event ever. (Can't imagine why "Crabby McSlacker" wouldn't be a welcome guest at any marketing event!)   So my apologies for unanswered emails, unvisited favorite blogs etc.  Will catch up eventually, I promise!

So, um squash. Or any new food item you recently discovered, or thoughts about conferences or moving or anything on your mind today? And if you've got favorite recipes, please throw in a link!

What the hell do I do with all this Squash?

[By Merry]

I've been thinking. We need more recipes thrown onto the blog once in awhile. That stuffed peppers one has been really getting a lot of attention. (I'll have to go back and check -- did Crabby advocate stuffing in some illegal herbage into those peppers or is there some other reason it's so incredibly popular?)

It occurred to me that another post might be welcome if it were centered around recipes for... wait for it...

SQUASH!

Zukes are cute? Who knew!

Anybody who's got a garden and been foolish enough to plant one little wimpy-looking squash plant is now up to their uvula in squash plants. (Oh come now. That's a perfectly decent word. Honest.It's not the poor word's fault that it looks funny.)

Sneak Your Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Night was celebrated a couple of weeks ago. (Note: the womanagement at Cranky Fitness wish to stress that they in no way encourage the Zucchini sneaking methods listed at Allrecipes.com -- but only because we don't want anyone to complain about us. They do sound fun.)

If you missed that, you might be in the mood for some ideas. I mean, these guys are healthy, they can be served in a tasty and tasteful manner, but even so... after a few back-to-back meals of these vegetables, you'll come to fully appreciate why they're named Squash.

Peasant women perform the annual Stomping of the Squash.
Coincidentally, peasant women rarely spend large amounts of cash on therapy.

- Cook squash with tomatoes, freeze for later on. Come November, it's dark out and rainy and you forgot to got to the store, serve this with some pasta and you'll feel virtuous.

Squash sauteed with tomatoes and basil; seasoned with garlic and rosemary; and finished with balsamic vinegar

- Make squash fritters with beer. I read somewhere -- can't remember the cook book -- that you should let the beer stay out until it goes flat for best results. Of course, this presumes you live in a household where you have beer around and more importantly where you can leave a half-empty can of beer out to go stale without someone drinking it or throwing it away (or both, hopefully in that order). There are various recipes out there for this; it makes a tasty treat. Not as healthy as some recipes, but it beats the hell out of deep fried twinkies. Really, doesn't taste bad.

- squash-with-basil soup. Can be served cold, which makes it nice on hot days. We still have a few of those left, don't we?

- squash cake. The nice thing about this type of thing is that you can grate the zucchini, freeze it for a couple months, and then whip up a healthy-but-the-kid's-eat-it-anyway cake. (I always feel more motivated to bake on cold Saturday mornings when the weather is horrible outside. Which it will be in a couple of months, I have a feeling.)

Anyone for the last piece?

- stuffed zucchinis! Why should peppers have all the fun? Hell, you can scoop out the squashy insides and use the shells for salad bowls or Mai Tai drink holders.

Carrots, celery, crumbled veggie burgers, squash, and spices in a baked butternut squash shell

- save them for a month or so and make... Carved Zucchinis!

Why should the pumpkins have all the fun?

And the fun doesn't stop there!

Start a new tradition: Hannukah Squash! They make highly original gifts.
Give Aunt Marge a gift she'll talk about for years.

Or not talk at all for years...

(Incidentally, I do love the word "Hannukah." I swear you can spell it several different ways and they're all correct. The people who thought up "obsolescence" and "chrysanthemum" should take note.)


What do you do with excess vegetables? Got any good squash recipes/gift ideas?