Winter Squash

The Basics

We grow a wide array of winter squash at the farm. You’ll find Delicata, Butternut, Honeynut, Acorn, Sweet Dumpling, Kabocha, Buttercup, Spaghetti, Sunshine, and Carnival squashes at our stands and markets over the fall season, as well as pie pumpkins and carving pumpkins. Each has different flavors, textures and storing abilities.

Cooking Tips

All are easy to bake and top with butter or olive oil and salt for a simple recipe. Just cut them in half, remove the seeds, and put them on a baking tray in an oven at 375 until the flesh is easy to poke into with a fork. The seeds of all the squashes can be baked and eaten separately if you’d like.

Baking your Winter Squash Seeds: All winter squash varieties have edible seeds that you can bake like pumpkin seeds. So if you’re baking your squash, bake the seeds too for an appetizer. Just scoop them out, pick out any pulp remaining from the squash, mix seeds with some oil and flavorings, like soy sauce and cayenne, and bake them spread on a cookie sheet, stirring occasionally, until crisp and golden brown. You can cook them in the oven at whatever temperature you’re baking your squash, just keep an eye on them as they’ll cook faster at high heats.

Pie pumpkins are not your regular jack’o’lanterns. While you can decorate with them, don’t forget to eat them too! It’s best not to cut them into jack’o’lanterns if you want to eat them, as the cut open parts can get disease. We select these pumpkin varieties for great flavor.

Pie pumpkins are delicious roasted in the oven, and mashed with butter salt and pepper. A tasty addition to soups, and stir fries too. Use anywhere you would winter squash – though pumpkin isn’t usually as sweet as some of the winter squash varieties.