Gamebird - how did you get "immature" butternut? Last year we planted way too early so I had TONS from July on. None of mine seemed to suffer from just sitting in the house at our normal room temps. However, when I got sick of looking at it, I peeled it, cubed it and froze it in freezer bags. Around the holidays, I pulled the chunks out of the freezer and baked for meals. Tasted just as fresh as if I had just picked it. I also cooked it after freezing for squash soup that was DELISH!

As far as peeling, I used a potatoe peeler and made sure to get rid of any green in the flesh. DH helped and complained that his hands felt like they had a film but OH WELL! Maybe you could blanch it and then freeze? I don't see why that wouldn't work. Several of mine last year were pretty green too, but that's how I used them.

Some others might have different advice but that's my 2 cents worth!

Paula

The four fruits I have are tannish. A couple have some small green stripes or some very faint green under the skin. I mean they're immature in that their skin is easily pierced by a fingernail. My father has said that he intends to continue picking them at this stage, even though I told him he should wait until the skin is tougher.

I also have an immature acorn squash with whitish-yellow flesh that was "picked" by coyotes, mauled a bit and then left alone. I brought it in thinking I'd bake it along with the butternuts if I didn't get other advice on cooking them, then mash the flesh and freeze it.

I need to start freezing some zucchini and yellow squash too for later in the year, grated and sliced.

Anyway, I was just wondering if butternut would still taste good after baking and have a good texture, or if I needed to treat it like summer squash and grate/slice it instead.

It just occurred to me that I've never tried baking and mashing zucchini or yellow squash. Do they taste good that way? Does it work out or is the skin tedious to remove?

I've never cooked with immature winter squash, that's an interesting dilemma. I would think the texture and flavor to be unpalatable, but who knows? I'm with George in that they would end up in the compost bin at my house.

Dale

The green on the rind is a sign of immaturity. Most people leave the butterut squash on the vine until they reach their mature tannish color uniformly all over the squash. I know you probably won't win this battle with your dad if he is strong-willed, but it really would be better to leave them on the vine until the rind is hard.

I don't know if immature winter squash are worth cooking/eating and I guess the only way to find out is to try one and see. In general, with any winter squash, if you pick it in a very immature stage, in terms of texture and flavor, it will resemble zucchini somewhat. If you pick it later on at the mature stage, the taste and texture are more like that of a sweet potato. So, depending on how immature the squash is, it will be somewhere in between the two...and you won't know until you cut into it if it is going to be more zucchini-like or sweet potato-like.

You can boil and mash squash. Here's how:

2 lbs. squash
water enough to cover
salt

Peel (unnecessary with young summer squash, but necesary with older squash or immature winter squash). You can cut it into chunks before boiling or leave it in fairly large pieces, but the chunks will cook more quickly. Place in a saucepan of enough boiling salted water to completely cover the squash. Cook about 10 minutes or until tender. Drain. Mash and season with the spices of your choice. If you want you can add a little butter for flavor.

For 2 lbs. of cooked squash, I'd add 1/2 t. salt and 1/4 cup butter or margarine, and maybe boil/mash 1 chopped onion along with it to give it better flavor.

To turn the above boiled squash + onion + salt + butter into a casserole, do the following:

1 batch of cooked squash
4 oz. shredded Cheddar cheese
1 cup crushed saltines
2 eggs, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients and mix well. Pour into a greased shallow 1 1/2-qt. baking dish and bake for 35 minutes.

Another way to give it great flavor would be to cook it southern style, which is fairly close to the recipe for boiled squash above except, being southern style, it has bacon drippings and pepper instead of plain old butter or margarine.

SAVORY SOUTHERN SQUASH:

2 lbs. squash, cleaned and chopped or sliced
1 large onion, chopped
1 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
1/4 C. bacon drippings

Combine squash and onion in a medium saucepan with boiling salted water to cover. Cook 10 minutes or until squash is tender. Drain well.

Mash the squash and onions. Drain well again. Add salt and pepper and stir together well.

Heat bacon drippings in a large skillet. Add the mashed squash mixture. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes or until mixture is browned.

Dawn

Cook one up, quick! ... and serve it to your father. If it's not very good, maybe he'll cease and desist!

George,

LOL! Great idea!

Dawn

I peeled and cooked the butternut today. It's a bit pasty. Actually it's a lot pasty. I think I had six or seven squash and I tried to add in the hubbard, but I guess it was too immature. It didn't get soft after boiling and it had green all through the flesh. It doesn't taste bad, but it doesn't taste good either so I'm picking those parts out when I find them. I baked 1 1/2 to see if that made them come out any different from boiling but it didn't. I've added sugar to sweeten it and extra salt and two sticks of butter, but I'm not sure it will overcome that pasty texture.

Is that a normal feature of butternut, or caused by them not being totally ripe? Some were orange fleshed and some yellow, so I'm sure they weren't all at the same level of ripeness.