Kabocha should keep most of the winter if properly handled, so you’ve got a while. Don’t store them too cold! ideally quite warm for a week or two, then above 50º. If you can’t manage either part of that, then room temperature, cool room temperature after the first couple weeks if you have any variation.
Any winter squash makes good pie; just use a pumpkin pie recipe. They also make good soup.
And the pie and the soup can be frozen, if one squash makes too much for you.
Outdoors!
– Eggplant is an acquired taste. Worth acquiring, IMO; though of course opinions vary – and unless you’re living with someone who likes eggplant, trying a bite or two at each sitting till it starts to grow on you can be difficult, because even the little Asians make more than two bites.
I hated it as a child. But my mother made an eggplant parmigiana which all of our guests raved over; and which she had sense enough not to make me eat. Listening to them, I’d try a bite. Didn’t like it. But with every bite I disliked it a little less. Then I started growing the stuff – and now I love it.
None. And it’s interesting that most my favorite vegetables lead the list currently (my favorites include okra, eggplant, beets, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, zucchini, celery and asparagus. Only kale I’m really tepid about in the top ten disliked, and fava beans I really do like, just don’t eat a lot of. Fava bean falafel, in particular, is awesome.)
Good point about its keeping qualities; I hadn’t thought of that, since when I buy it at the market I use it right away. Still, with 3 nearing ripeness, another 3 coming up behind them, and gawd only knows how many to follow (the plants are quite young; I only put them in the ground a few weeks ago, and they are eagerly sending tendrils all over the place), at some point I suspect I’ll just give them away.
Years ago I read an article that claimed that any winter squash besides pumpkin is better in most recipes than actual pumpkin; whether or not that’s true, I’ve used that statement as a guide and all my “pumpkin” dishes have been based on various winter squashes ever since.
Yeah, I don’t dislike kale, and so didn’t check it off, but I agree that anything that kale is good at, spinach or chard is better.
I’m also not wild about most of the squashes, though I don’t dislike them, either. Okra isn’t top of my list, but there’s some dishes where it’s essential. Beets are good every way I’ve had them, raw, pickled, and cooked. And I’m rather fond of broccoli and Brussels sprouts, and you’ll pry my cauliflower from my cold, dead fingers.
One note about Kale. My wife, the vegetarian in the house, is always willing to try a wide variety of greens and veggies to find extra options in building tasty meals. We both like spinach (and I’m making a slow cooker’s worth of Saag this weekend) but she’s tried kale a few times agrees with @LVBoPeep and @Chronos that spinach is better almost every time.
But there is an exception! Tuscan kale she finds rather delightful. Far less bitter, with a richer flavor than most store-bought spinach (can’t evaluate super fresh local, as we do get home grown spinach from my MiL in season, but she’s never grown kale). Sadly, the price of Tuscan kale, and the limited availability precludes it’s common use, but felt it was worth mentioning the exception to the sentiment above.
I was a never a fan of Brussel sprouts, but in the last ten years or so, they’ve been big as an appetizer item at several restaurants I go to. And they are roasted with garlic and balsamic glaze and lardons. Heavenly! At one particular restaurant, they occasionally run out they’re so popular. Making vegetables sweet does not make them appealing to me. I hate yams, and I don’t care how much sugar or marshmallows you put on top.
The first time I saw a reference to beetroot when I was a kid, I thought they just ate the stringy root thread dangling off the actual beet itself. I wondered why they bothered.
Okra is a crime against nature. It’s like eating a vegetable that’s been sneezed on by a giant slug. It’s slimy, gooey, and gross.
I’m a fan of fried food, even though my arteries are not. Crisp-frying vegetables elevates them to a higher level of appreciation in my book. So, when I saw fried okra on a menu years ago, I thought I’d give it a chance to redeem itself.
Is it still a vegetable I refuse to eat? It’s not.
…I mean, it’s snot. The fried coating was a cruel trick. It lured me in with a satisfying crunch, only to reveal the horror inside. It was like biting into a booger bomb. Frying didn’t help redeem it at all. Never again!
I actually like okra in gumbos or the fried variety. However, one of our favorite small-town sushi places often did a special- usually something like yellowtail with fried beets (delicious). One time, I can’t remember what the fish was but it was an okra special. I can’t even describe the extreme level of slime- the mucous strings from each piece of the roll was more than I could take.
Maybe, but this site says they are safe- (lots of stuff we eat is mildly toxic, oddly enuf) If you’re throwing out those bright green, bushy carrot tops every time you buy carrots, you’re missing out! Carrot greens are not only safe to eat — they’re packed with nutrients and earthy flavor. Learn what to do with carrot tops in place of other herbs and leafy greens, and we’ll dispel that myth that they’re somehow poisonous.
## Can You Eat Carrot Greens?
If you’ve heard the rumors that carrot tops are poisonous (and even deadly) it’s understandable as to why you’d toss them. But these rumors are just that — rumors. Carrot greens and tops are not poisonous, and they are most certainly edible.
Carrot greens do contain alkaloids, but so does nearly every leafy green vegetable.
I like most vegetables but I hate Broccoli with an unholy passion. I even coined a word for other things I dislike. “Broc”. As in “This movie is totally broc!”
I hate, Hate, HATE fucking broccoli. It looks like a zombies brain, tastes like evil, and smells like a soiled diaper while it’s being cooked. I don’t want even one flake of it anywhere near my dinner plate!
soooooo many! I know I don’t like asparagus and okra, and I may or may not like others but never having encountered them, I don’t know.
When I was a kid, we mostly had corn, peas, green beans, carrots, and occasionally cabbage. Never had a salad or broccoli or cauliflower till I was an adult. No way of knowing for sure what I like and don’t like, tho I do eat more things in the list than the few my mom served.
Steamed lightly and chilled, served as finger food with mayo.
Or stir fried with carrots and tossed with sesame salt.
Almost all people who hate vegetables, particularly the crucifers (broccoli cabbage kale brussels sprouts etc) experienced them overcooked in water. They are awful that way.
I’ve never had jackfruit, that’s the only one on the list I’m not familiar with. Except for asparagus, which I think is one of those things that tastes quite different to different people, and horseradish, which is simply too hot (there are radishes I cannot eat either), I like all of them when they are harvested at the proper time, eaten promptly, and well-prepared.
In this culture, vegetables are seen as a dismissable adjunct to meat and starch. I see them as the essential middle layer between a protein and a carb. I probably eat at least four different vegetables every day.
Also, kidney beans and other dry beans are not typically classed as vegetables, but as proteins. Corn and potatoes are really starches.
This is true; but it’s also true that taste buds vary. In particular, the extent to which one tastes the glucosinolates in brassicas is genetically coded – the gene’s been identified.
So some people dislike brassicas/crucifers because they’ve had them cooked improperly; and other people dislike them because they taste awful to them; and some, of course, for both reasons. Probably some tasters also get to like the taste – many people like some bitter flavors, just like many people like hot peppers.
Yes, there was a Japanese restaurant near where I worked a billion years ago (I actually saw a book of their matches on eBay recently), and they served broccoli that was just blanched with a spicy mayo/sesame dressing that was so delicious it’s the first thing I think of when I remember that restaurant.
I think this explains most of the loathing expressed towards brussels sprouts. When all you know are the boiled mushy kind served in cafeterias or school lunches, it’s not surprising the vegetable is condemned. Properly prepared (for instance roasted) the texture and flavor are great.
Too much has been made of supposed genetic susceptibilities to taste regarding vegetables. Someone does a preliminary study suggesting a possible genetic basis, the news media picks it up as unchallenged science (as it does with a lot of unreplicated research) and it’s enshrined as “fact”.
