To bake a butternut squash lay it on it’s side and carefully press a knife through the center.  Cut down towards the bottom end, then turn the squash around and cut from the middle back to the top.  Open the squash and remove the seeds that are in the bottom of the squash.

Place them upside down in a baking tray and add about 3 cups of water.  This will help keep the squash from sticking to the pan as it cooks.  Cover with foil.

Bake at 350F for about 45 minutes.

To tell if the squash is done, gently press with a fork.  If the fork easily presses through the squash you know it’s done!  Let it cool until it’s easy to handle.  Turn the squash over and scoop out the the cooked flesh.  Puree this in a food processor or a blender.  If you don’t have one you can also use a potato masher and hand mixer.

If your not wanting to use the puree right a way, you can freeze it in storage containers or freezer bags. I prefer to measure mine out in 2 cup portions, I find most of my recipes use this amount.  You can also dehydrate the puree.  I will be adding a video on how to do that soon.

This same basic method can be used for most squashes and butternut puree can be substituted easily in any recipe calling for pumpkin puree.

]]> http://homestead-acres.com/blog/in-the-kitchen/economic-collapse-whats-going-on-in-your-neck-of-the-woods/feed/ 5 http://homestead-acres.com/blog/homesteading/maple-syrup-season-has-started/ http://homestead-acres.com/blog/homesteading/maple-syrup-season-has-started/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:56:23 +0000 Kim http://www.homestead-acres.com/blog/?p=1140 [...]]]> Spring has come to the homestead and with it the first harvest crop.  Maple syrup!!  We only have 2 maple trees on our property, but that yummy sap isn’t going to waste.

If you’ve been following our video homestead series, you’ll know that making maple syrup was our first video.

When the temperatures started to rise we headed out to tap the trees.  After the first day we had collected about 2 gallons of sap.  It was strained and set in a large pot on medium heat to evaporate.  When it was almost finished dh transferred it to a small pot.  This is were the “trouble” started.  We got busy and forgot it was cooking…  The sap came to a boil, when I spotted this I turned it off, when it cooled it was rock hard in the pot.  Hmmm…

Maple Sugar Harvest 2010

Well I thought why not heat it up and pour it out on wax paper.  We’ll have maple candy!  I turned the temp on low and started to soften it.  I stirred it up making sure it wouldn’t burn.  But something unexpected happened.  As the sap was heating up it started turning to powder in front of my eyes.  It was amazing to see!  What we were left with was maple sugar!  And it is soooo delicious!

I wish all kitchen mistakes could be that good.  LOL!

There has been lots of dehydrating in my kitchen lately!  Since I received my Excalibur Dehydrator I’ve been working at clearing out the freezer.  I’m happy to say that all the veggies I had frozen have now been dehydrated!  This is a huge space and energy savings.  It also frees up my freezer space for meat and things waiting to be canned.

These are peppers and mixed vegetables before and after dehydrating.

Today I’m featured on the Real Food Face Off along with Virginia at Living the Local Life.  The Real Food Face Off is a gathering of “real food bloggers” and is hosted by Kitchen Stewardship.   Twice a week 2 bloggers are featured together to share their thoughts on what real food is and share tips and tricks.  Check out Kitchen Stewardship to visit with many great food bloggers!

Some questions and answers that didn’t go live:

1.  If you only had energy for ONE make-from-scratch food, what would it be?  Is your preference for taste or health? One thing that I prefer to buy is Chinese chicken balls!  I have yet to find a good recipe for them so this is an occasional treat.

2.  What’s your favorite real/traditional food? I have two favorites.  My husbands pizza with garlic bread and salad.  Second is chicken and dumplings.

3.  If you had only $20 to spend in a week on real food, what would you buy and what would you make? If I only had $20 I would buy wheat berries (or flour), rice, beans, lard, butter, sugar, bananas, apples, celery, carrots and yeast.   With these ingredients you could make many different breads and stir fry’s.  Fruits would be saved for snacks.

Recently a dear friend asked me if I would like a dehydrator she was no longer using.  I was just so excited!  I’ve been canning for over 15 years and I would never give that up.   However dehydrating has many benefits.  It saves a LOT of space and properly stored many items can last up to 30 years.    Standard guidelines on canned goods are 1 year, although myself and many canners have used them well past that and they were just fine.

My main interest in dehydrating is time savings, space savings and long term storage.

This is the dehydrator I have except that mine has 4 trays.  I love it, enough that I will be getting a larger  Excalibur
one ASAP.

Below is what I’ve been dehydrating in the past week.  The bag of corn was a 1kg (2.2 lb) frozen bag, it now fits in just 1 medium zip lock bag!  Each bag of peppers had taken up 4 medium zip lock bags before dehydrating.  We bought lots on a case sale last summer, diced and froze them. The bottom right are blueberries.  Last week a local store had 600 g tubs of frozen wild organic blueberry’s on sale.   Now these will be easy to add to yogurt or baked goodies!  On the bottom left are banana chips, or what is left at them.   lol  The kids just love them!

I decided to join Crystal at Money Saving Mom and FishMomma at Life as Mom in the freezer cooking day.  Although in my case I’m spreading it out over a few days.  I find with many young little ones it’s much easier to spread the work out this way.

I actually started a few days ago and a little differently from many people.  I’m partly emptying my freezers! Yes I’m working at taking many of the vegetables and fruits out and dehydrating them.  This will save us a lot of freezer space and keep them in good condition longer then freezing.

Below is my plan although it may change depending on the sales this week.

My OAMC list for the next few days:

• Smooth Marmalade x 2
• Grapefruit Marmalade
• dehydrate blueberries
  
• dehydrate zucchini from freezer
• Whole wheat bread x8
• Blueberry muffins x 2 batches
• Waffles
• BBQ marinated chicken

Monday: Baked chicken breast, mashed potatoes, gravy, veggies.

Tuesday: Sheppards Pie, mashed potatoes, garden salad.

Wednesday: Hamburgers and fry’s.

Thursday: Stir fry, rice.

Friday: Baked tomato pasta, garlic bread, ceasar salad.

Saturday: Pizza, garlic strips, salad

Sunday: Roast, scalloped potatoes, carrots.

Today I gave it a try and ground enough wheat to make my normal bread recipe.  What can I say I LOVE fresh whole wheat bread!  I made four loaves and two are gone already!  One was devoured before it finished cooling.  The other was turned into garlic bread.  That went great with our pizza supper.  Now if I could just find a local source for taller bread pans!  All our area sells are 8 x 4 inch.

What am I up to in the kitchen now?  I’ve been canning for over 15 years and made many jams.  However one thing I’ve never made is marmalade.  Now hubby and I both love the taste of orange marmalade, so you may wonder why have I not made my own.  Well you see we love the taste but don’t like the chunks of peel. We both like smooth jams as you can see by my strawberry jam post, I puree our fruits before cooking.  Now I’m joining in on the Tigress Jam Can and this months fruit is citrus.  So I’m taking the challenge to come up with a marmalade hubby and I will LOVE. I was going to experiment this afternoon.  But I was drafted by hubby to help insulate the ceiling in the summer kitchen/craft room.

So tomorrow I’ll be experimenting with oranges and clementines!  And you can bet my food processor will be involved to make a nice smooth marmalade.