Hi everyone, Jess here.
Yesterday I picked up a fresh chicken from the farm stand at the Springdell Poultry Harvest. I hope you did, too! If not, it’s not too late, just swing by and ask! You’ll be glad you did!
The chicken I brought home weighs just under 9 pounds. As I lugged my gigantic bird into the house I reminisced that this was the size of my second born son on the day of his birth. All I can say about that is, yikes!
If you’ve followed this blog, you’ve seen me roast a chicken several times before. Rather than our standard oven roast I decided to break down our lovely bird for enjoyment over the course of many meals (which I’ll be sure to share here). Instead I’d like to focus your attention on this guy here:
How many of you received this in your share box this week? How many of you were torn between whether this was a decoration or something to enjoy? It looks much like a Cinderella pumpkin, but after clarification with Farmer Jamie, I learned that it is actually a squash. This is great news as Jamie has a knack for growing not only the traditional squash varieties (such as Butternut and Acorn), but also varieties that I had never before tried (or even seen) and absolutely fallen in love with. Kabocha squash, for example, looked more to me like an alien seed pod when it first showed up in my share box many moons ago, and it is now one of my favorite squashes, trumping the almighty Butternut.
This particular squash is called a “Speckled Hound”. Upon seeing it in the share box, I immediately thought of this really good looking pumpkin soup video from Purewow.com
Let’s see how things work out with my Speckled Hound filling in for a pumpkin.
I feel like the hardest part of this whole thing is the cutting and scooping. It took some finessing, but with a little patience the top came off.
A grapefruit spoon made short work of the seed removal. These meaty seeds will make a great snack after roasting!
I filled the squash cavity with one leek, chicken stock, and one clove of garlic, just as instructed in the video. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have filled the cavity quite to the top of the opening. I’ll leave a little room next time as the extra moisture from the pumpkin caused the broth to overflow when cooking (not that this is necessarily a bad thing).
Can’t forget the freshly grated Parmesan! After putting the cover back on, we roasted it as instructed until we had this!
So pretty!
So easy and yummy!
We also had eggplant, chicken and green peppers cooked in a garlic sauce and served on a bed of rice noodles that were tossed in sesame oil.
For dessert this week, we enjoyed gluten-free sugar cookies. Hey, that counts as local since I used a CSA egg to make them, right? RIGHT?
Anyway, it was a fun day to do some cooking. Thanks for tuning in and see you tomorrow when Sarah brings us a recipe for Meatless Monday!