I got two butternut squashes from the farmers market yesterday.  They were $2.50.  I only actually used half of one of them for two recipes.

Both recipes came from http://bread-and-honey.blogspot.com.  I had never tried to make a butternut squash curry before, it seemed like an odd idea.  The soup seemed almost natural, and came out tastier than I expected.

I also made a salad involving tomatoes of every color.  Wish I had a picture now.  I had green zebra tomatoes, lemon finger tomatoes, chocolate tomatoes, and some italian red tomatoes that I actually forget the variety of now.  Some cucumbers, some bell peppers, and some balsamic, very basic yet still tasty.  Bell peppers and cucumbers are strangely cheap at the farmers market ($2 for five bell peppers, $2 for two cucumbers or $1/pound).

Salad:

  • Two large cucumbers.
  • Tomatoes of every color I could find at the farmers market
  • A large bell pepper
  • Balsamic vinegar

Chop up and stir together.  That’s about it!  Actually no I think a hair of salt was added.

The other two were much more involved.  I baked the squash, potatoes, garlic, carrots, onions, and a couple peppers all at once before starting.

Soup:

  • 1/4 squash
  • Several potatoes
  • A small bulb of garlic
  • Half an anaheim pepper
  • Half an onion (sorry to these folks)
  • Carrots
  • Some powdered chicken boullion
  • Lots of water
  • Salt and pepper

I followed their recommendation of “when baking, drizzle everything in olive oil and salt”.  They are right in that it makes everything tasty.  After baking everything, I boiled a small amount of water and threw in the boullion.  Actually, I threw in all the ingredients, wandering around the house looking for anything else that needed eating before it became icky.  Then I scooped the ingredients out of the boiling water, into the blender, added more water (not from the pot), blended, and back into the pot.  Since not all the ingredients could fit in the blender, I did this process about five times

The curry was a bit more involved, but not much, not really.

  • 1/4 Butternut squash
  • One small summer squash
  • Block of tofu
  • One clove of garlic (normally I’d do much more, but being as there is a bulb in the soup, I decided against it)
  • The rest of the onion
  • A small can of coconut milk
  • A bell pepper
  • A spoonful of Patak’s curry paste
  • Two arbol peppers

This was easy, just saute onions, garlic, peppers in olive oil.  When the oil has those flavors, cube the tofu, and sizzle as much as possible.  When you’re convinced the tofu won’t cook anymore, put in the coconut milk.Turn the heat down, and add water if the coconut milk gets too thick.  Stir in the curry paste, and add all the other vegetables.  Let the glodge cook until you are satisfied (I generally just let the veggies get as hot as the rest of the food, you may want to add them before adding coconut milk).  Serve with rice.

Edit:  I can’t believe I forgot to mention this!  After curry paste, but before veggies, get the mushiest chunks of the butternut squash.  Mash them up into the coconut milk/curry paste mixture.  It makes for a creamy yummy tasty curry sauce.  You can leave some of the squash as chunks, or not, as you like, I mushed all of my chunks up into the coconut milk.

The original recipe calls for Thai curry paste, but I used Indian curry paste, mainly because I found myself lacking Thai curry paste at the last moment.  It didn’t matter-it still came out very tasty.  The only thing I’d suggest is a more serious vegetable-the summer squash was as white as the tofu, I’d recommend a broccoli or red cabbage or something.