Quickly in, typing up yet another textbook-chapter review (yeah!) before running back home to watch at least some of the Dirty Jobs Labor Day marathon.

I picked away at various things over the weekend. Saturday was mainly devoted to reading the chapter and handwriting my comments on it, and reading both program assessment reports my department is required to produce every year (thank goodness, I don't have to write the things; I just have to contribute a certain amount of data for them). Program review is one of those things you have to do in academia. It's not fun, it's not clear that it's really that useful in improving the program, but it's mandated. And you have to do it every year, with accreditation years (which is coming up in a couple years for us) being extra not-fun.

Sunday I pulled out the quilt blocks I finished a long time ago (the green, yellow, and red, using mainly Mary Engelbreit fabrics). I laid out and sewed together most of the quilt but ran out of steam on it. This quilt is a lot more involved and requires a lot more attention than I thought it would.

I also worked more on the sleeve of the Airy Cardigan. I am within 30 rows of being finished with this. I can't quite believe I may have this done this week. Heck, I may have it done TODAY if I work diligently on it and the edging isn't a major pain to do.

I also finally found a way to cook up butternut squash so I like it nearly as well as I like sweet potatoes. I was often disappointed by butternut squash - it smells good when you cut it up, but upon cooking, it develops a slight "earthy" flavor that I tend to find objectionable.

But, I persist. Because squash is cheap and is "good for you." (And because the new-crop sweet potatoes haven't come in and the ones at the store right now are disappointing. New-crop sweet potatoes, especially where I live (they usually come in from Louisiana, not very far away) are FANTASTIC but the ones that have been in storage nearly a year are not so good). But this time I based the preparation on an idea from Mark Bittman*, from his big huge cookbook.

You season the cooked squash with ginger. Not even all that much ginger. It seems to have a noise-cancelling effect on the earthiness of the squash. (I used somewhere between 1/2 and 1 t for an entire small squash).

So I baked the cut-open squash for maybe an hour and 15 minutes at 350 degrees. I started out with water in the bottom of the pan but that cooked away fairly rapidly. Then I scooped out the squash, added a small lump of butter, added the ginger. And I added some honey to sweeten (Bittman suggests brown sugar, but I think the honey was better).

It was probably (short of making butternut squash soup, which is more work) the best way I've had squash.


(*I will admit at times I grow weary of Bittman's attitude. Then again, I also grow weary of James Beard's attitude sometimes when I read him. It bugs me when someone comments essentially that a certain food is "not worth cooking" simply because they do not like it. Especially when it is something I like. And Bittman's locavory, while a noble goal, doesn't always work out so well for those of us far from specialty markets or a "Whole Paycheck" and who have to depend on either our little local groceries or the Mart of Wal.)