what are your culinary plans for the holiday season

butternut squash
One of my new favorite squashes: Butternut! CLICK on this picture to read more about Butternut Squash!

In the United States we have two basic shapes of Butternut Squash, I prefer this larger economy version best! I love most types of squash, but I have to confess that Butternut ( or called Butternut Pumpkin in some parts) escaped me. Like most things, if the culinary experience is poor, we tend to avoid it. My interest wasn’t peaked until my daughter Kristin said she wanted to make a Butternut Squash Pie. She ‘claimed’ it was like Pumpkin, but better! Naturally, I wanted to try it out.

pressure cooked squash
pealed, chopped and placed into a pressure cooker for 40 minutes! CLICK on this picture to be amazed at Butternut Squash's nutritional data!

The pressure cooker works great for this purpose … after a pie, I think a nice creamy soup will be next on the itinerary! Next, I cooked the pie on the stove with salt, butter and my spice blend  in order to stay a little closer to how Kristin made her pie.

Cooking in butter with a nice spice blend of mine
Cooking in butter with a nice spice blend of mine

The last step is to place the entire mixture  into a freezer until the holidays… and bake the final pie when my daughters come home and we can enjoy it together. I tasted the puree and it was delicious… even with just salt, butter and spice ! It is a very nice departure from Pumpkin.

ready for the freezer
ready for the freezer

The texture turned out wonderfully smooth and with enough heavy cream and eggs it should be a wonderful pie. I’ll post the final recipe as we get closer to the holidays. Thanks, Chef Kristin.

YUM!