Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Since the Oven Is On Anyway...

There's a tiny bit of blue peeking through an otherwise gray sky this morning. Although it's not as cold as it's been, clearly fall is here and winter is nipping at her heels. I don't think I'm mentally ready to say goodbye to the final reminders of summer like CSA pickups, the food dehydrator and the canning supplies.

The thing I do like about the colder weather is the way cooking just feels like a natural part of it. The woodstove warms the majority of the house while the food cooking warms the kitchen.

I cooked the first acorn sqaush of the season last night along with some of the last corn of the season. The seeds from acorn squash can be baked the same as you would pumpkin seeds. I always hate trying to seperate the stringy orange goo that holds the seeds together. I pulled out the big bits but gave up on the smaller, harder to grab ones and just tossed them onto a greased cookie sheet, tiny orange bits and all. In the cooking process the orange goo dried up and largely disappeared. I'm definitely going to try that again.

I'm sure I broke some culinary law but I put the seeds and the squash in the oven at the same time (on different baking sheets) at 350 degrees for an hour. Half an hour into their cooking time I put in the corn on the cob in a covered 9" x 13" pan into the oven. (Ok, actually it's a 9" x 13" pan with a cookie sheet covering the top but it works!) The oven was full, and therefore less wasteful, plus everything was done at the same time which is always nice.

1 comment:

AnnMarie said...

The stringy bits are my favorite part of the toasted seeds...except they take longer to dry out so I usually pull off as much as I can! They taste much like the seeds but soak up more of the salt I soak them in LOL