My in-laws love growing their own food. They have barrels for green beans. Their property is dotted with apple, pear and plum trees.

And then there’s the squash patch.

Fertilized with a healthy heap of horse manure, their dozen little starts of summer squash, heirloom pumpkins and other winter squash turned into this mass of vines and gourds that left them way more than they, or my husband and I, or their friends, and our friends could eat It offered a wonderful opportunity to experiment in the kitchen without feeling like I wasted the plant.

One of the gems from the garden was a French heirloom pumpkin called a Galeux D’eysines Squash that she grew from mail-order seeds .

It’s as big as a six-month-old baby with salmon-colored skin and a mass of sugar warts all over it. The flesh is a bright, happy orange and hard as a rock. It took a little patience to work with, but it was perhaps the tastiest pumpkin I’ve ever had.

I gave half away, half-baked a quarter at 350-degrees just enough to make it easier to chop up, and baked the other quarter until it was soft enough to mash.

I sauteed some chopped-up pieces and covered it with sage crisped in browned butter over the top (it was a little softer than I had liked). I also mashed it with some cooked minced garlic and milk, salt and pepper.

And, of course, there were desserts. Next post: Pumpkin pie.

I couldn’t track down any place in Kitsap that sold them, so you might have to wait until next year until you can grow them yourself.

However, Nikki from Pheasant Fields Farm in Silverdale said that although they don’t have the Galeax D’eysines (it was the first she’d heard of it), she suggested another one: "My most favorite pumpkin for cooking purposes is the Long Island Cheese pumpkin. When prepared for pies, it has a wonderful creamy texture
about it that makes a really great pumpkin pie." Ann Vogel wrote about it about a year ago.

She also passed on a winter-squash glossary that has tips on how to work with and cook winter squashes on culinate.com . If I don’t squash myself out, I’m going to have to try some of those recipes.

Share on Facebook