this is a photo of our delicata squash, a type of squash that has a hard rind that makes it feel like a gourd, but that’s also edible. we cut it up (with my gorgeous, wonderful santoku that i keep nicking myself with by accident) and tossed with with carrien’s ligurian-pesto-infused olive oil, then shot it in the oven until it was done. we had gotten the delicata squash in our organic food shipment (must remember to leave the boxes out for them this week); neither of us had ever had it before. it has the texture of a slightly firmer sweet potato, with a more subtle, less dramatic flavor to it. it’s also much more attractive than your typical squash. we added some microplaned parmesan cheese, too, and had it for dinner along with some persian hybrid rice. the best thing about our box o’ organic food is that it forces us to cook with what we have, instead of running over to star, which always looms in the oh-so-short distance. tonight we had spinach and half a bell pepper to use up, so we sauteed some diced onions, added the bell peppers and the spinach, and then yogurt. minus the bell pepper, this resembles a persian dish celina once made for a menu. we then added rice (if you were persian you would eat this not with rice, if i remember correctly) that we had cooked with chicken broth and cumin. it was quite good, and something i’d do again. amount-wise, we had about two cups of spinach, one medium-sized diced onion, and half a green bell pepper, and added maybe a third cup of lowfat plain yogurt (plus salt and pepper, of course). to this we added the rice, which was about a cup dry.

a tidbit for you to enjoy is this article about cornell’s award-winning variety of delicata squash. this is the first link that comes up when one googles “delicata squash.” it’s kind of funny (as well as noteworthy for you plant breeders out there) in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way.