Butternut Squash Day

The severe prevailing gales of the past three days has forced my loaf to lean to the East. And not just the loaf:

Except the flour is leaning West. Could be something to do with Halloween.

And it’s not a loaf, it’s a cake – a French savoury cake.

Two or three weeks back, in a burst of seasonality, I bought a butternut squash. The great thing about butternut squash is, unlike lettuce which turns into black, slimy pulp in the bottom of your fridge, you can ignore it for weeks and it will sit on top of you veg rack with a blank smile on its face and stay as fresh as a daisy.

No point in messing about, might as well puree the whole thing. So, peel it, halve it vertically, scoop out the seeds, cut it into chunks. I line a big paella tin with foil, plonk in the squash, sprinkle with chile flakes, a good splash of olive oil and a smaller splash of water, seal the foil and bake until soft – 30-40 minutes. Wack it in the processor.

Two bakes today.

Cake Salé au Potimarron: a recipe from the Gironde which is not a bread, it’s an eggy batter that miraculously turns into loaf-shaped thing when it’s baked for about 45 minutes. Contains a small amount of spelt, butter, eggs, milk, cheese, squash, lardons and mushrooms. Recipe and story here

So I get a few warm slices for lunch, with a little potato salad and lettuce salad, and the rest goes in the fridge and supplies the odd slice to go with an aperitif during the week, We’re very sophisticated at the top end of Penybryn …

Second bake: Butternut Squash, Chile and Sunflower Seed – overall winner 20 years ago at the Ludlow Food Festival.

Good as ever. Formula and story here,

And I still got 450g of puree left in the fridge …