Week 48 - Gourds

When I think of gourds, what comes to mind first are mostly decorative and ornamental gourds, so I wasn't sure what to do for this challenge. Then I remembered that things like butternut squash would qualify, so I went off to research what other gourds I could cook with, since breaking down a butternut squash is not among my favorite activities. A list on Lifehacker ranked edible gourds with some preparation tips, which was super helpful and led me to what I ended up making - delicata squash!

I think I've eaten delicata squash once or twice, not 100% sure, but I've never cooked it before. After surveying a bunch of different sites, it seemed that the most common and foolproof way to make it was to roast it in the oven. The ingredients for our delicata squash experiment were:

- 2 delicata squash ($3.25)

- Spanish olive oil ($0.30)

- salt and pepper ($0.05)

It was a late dinner, but I didn't start that late. Still haven't changed the time on the rice cooker yet...

The squash portion cost about $3.60, and we paired it with some Trader Joe's microwavable mashed potatoes (not sure how much the bag cost, so probably another dollar) and Gardein's vegan 7-grain crispy chick'n tenders ($4.79). Dinner came out to approximately $9.39, which was not bad for three people, especially considering the bulk of the price was the pre-made Gardein tenders.

To make the squash, I cut them in half lengthwise, scooped out the seeds and stringy parts (harder than I thought it would be and not all the stringy parts came off, but in retrospect, guess I didn't need to be that precise), chopped them into half moon shapes, and then covered them with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Into the oven they went at 425 degrees for 25 minutes (swapping locations on the oven racks 15 minutes in).

One of the reasons people love delicata squash is that you don't have to peel it unlike a lot of other squash. The skin is edible, and it's supposed to get really soft when you roast it. It was soft enough to eat, but it turned out a little dry and crunchy, so I pulled it off of B's pieces. I made sure there was oil on all of the skin parts, so I'm not sure how to get it any softer in the future. (Any ideas, let us know!)

As far as taste, it turned out delicious with the simple olive oil, salt, and pepper seasoning. We were really happy with the squash, which was good because we had so much of it. I don't know why, but I always pictured delicata squash as smaller than the ones we got, which is why I got two. It turned out to be the right amount for us to get two squash, and we did finish it all, but it filled our entire oven on its two trays, leaving no room for anything else and meaning the chick'n had to be made after the squash, leading to a late dinner. The whole meal worked though, and I would definitely do this again!