Squashed

Although our unseasonable fall-like weather has been replaced by the higher temperatures and higher humidity we're more accustomed to in October, I've found myself enchanted by the fruits of the fall harvest. Seeing all those apples on display at HEB and Sprouts is such a delight, and the price for eggplants has come down. Autumn's so much more colorful and so much more appetizing.

Out of sheer curiosity, fond remembrances of a soup I had while at a yoga teacher training retreat 7 years ago (yegods, has it really been 7 years?) and a growing desire to try using my tagine on the stove top along with the diffuser plate I'd bought for that express purpose, I bought a butternut squash. Not only are butternut squash chocked full of all kinds of healthful benefits, but their unique shape just begs for all sorts of off-color jokes about phalli. Would this innocent-looking squash be my undoing? I honestly didn't know.

With the butternut squash purchased, I obviously had to figure out how to prepare it for use in the chicken-butternut tagine recipe I planned to use it in. I'd seen an acorn squash prepared--with the use of a cleaver and hammer--on America's Test Kitchen some time before, but my little squash only weighed about a pound and a half. It was no behemoth and certainly, I hoped, wouldn't not require me to use implements we keep in the garage in the toolbox.

Instead of turning to one of my Cook's Illustrated references, I turned instead to Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. Ms. Jaffrey straightforward guidance filled me with confidence that I wouldn't be reaching for a sledgehammer or be putting my much-hated country blue kitchen countertops at risk in the preparation of the squash. Armed with just my beloved Victorinox chef's knife and a cutting board, I got down to business.

Although pumpkins and butternut squash are in the same family, so to speak, carving up my butternut was a whole lot easier than carving up a pumpkin for a jack-o-lantern. Or at least the specimen I had to work with was, for it hardly had many seeds and not a lot of that stringy, sticky, fibrous "guts" to scoop out. Peeling it was a breeze too: I used a combination of a basic veggie peeler and my chef's knife.

Given that this task was brand new to me, I was quite proud to have the squash halved vertically, cleaned, cut into portions, peeled and then cubed and parceled out into an appropriate amount for the tagine and into two freezer bags of similar portions for later use all within 30 minutes or so. Well, at least I don't think that's too bad for a first-timer.

With the big prep task out of the way, I moved on to the actual making 'o the tagine.

Chicken-butternut Tagine1 T olive oil
2 C chopped onion
2 t ground cumin
1 t paprika
1 t ground turmeric
1/4 t salt
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 C fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
8 oz. peeled, cubed butternut squash
1/3 C halved pitted picholine olives (about 3 oz.)
8 pitted dried plums, chopped
Fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves (optional)

1. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat.
   
2. Add the onion and cook 8 min. or until golden, stirring occasionally.
   
3. Stir in cumin, paprika, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, salt, garlic and chicken, and then cook 1 min., stirring constantly.
   
4. Stir in broth, squash, olives and dried plums.
   
5. Bring the mixture to a boil, cover, reduce heat to medium-low and then simmer 10 min. or until squash is tender.
   
6. Garnish with parsley, if desired.

Yield: 4 servings of 1 1/4 C each

Nutritional Info
Calories: 309
Fat: 8.8 g
Sat fat: 0.9 g
Protein: 29.8 g
Carbs: 29.7 g
Fiber: 5.2 g
Cholesterol: 66 mg
Sodium: 782 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
I'll say this right off, Gentle Reader: I got way too wrapped up in preparing the squash right. How ridiculous is it that I was so worried about that? Well, I did. So much so that I made some goofs with the recipe. Oh well.

• I failed to remember the salt until well after I'd added the broth and squash. D'oh!
  
• I failed to remember the turmeric until today when I was transcribing the recipe. Sheesh, that's really pathetic.
  
• I didn't use that tablespoon of olive oil called for by the recipe. Maybe a teaspoon and a half did the trick.
  
• I don't do olives. Even the smell of them turns my stomach, thus I have to give a wide berth to the olive bars at various grocery stores around Austin lest I ralph right then and there.
  
• While I do have prunes, I didn't feel this recipe would be served well by them. I've made a Moroccan dish or two with them, and they impart an interesting taste that...well, it's not terribly satisfying for me. I instead used dried cranberries, tossing an amount that I thought was equivalent to the prunes and the olives.
  
• Because I didn't have enough squash to for three 8-ounce freezer bags, I tossed in an extra 3 ounces or so. Did that lead to overcrowding? I don't think so.
  
• I used my tagine to prepare the dish rather than Chive the Dutchie because the recipe's called a tagine.
  
• I doubled the simmering time on the advice of some of the recipe reviews so that the squash would indeed be tender.

My nerves were a bit overwrought not just from working with the squash but also from using the tagine on the stovetop for the first time. It performs beautifully in the oven, but I had my doubts about the diffuser's ability to evenly and adequately heat the bottom bowl of the tagine. I'm not sure if those doubts were well-founded or not because it seemed to take forever for the olive oil to heat up. In fact, it wasn't anywhere near warm enough when I tossed in the onions to brown. I had to keep the burner heat turned up fairly high for most of the cooking time, which I really didn't like. That strikes me as inefficient. That said, though, I did have to turn down the heat substantially about 10 minutes into the simmering time because liquid was starting to bubble out from beneath the chimney lid, which isn't as tight-fitting as a traditional pot lid.

The finished tagine dish was quite tasty, although I wonder now what it would be like if I'd remembered the turmeric.
The squash did come out quite tender, and I tried to induce the boy into eating it by letting him know it tasted very close to potatoes. (He had maybe two or three cubes and that was it.) I served the finished yumminess atop pistachio couscous, but I think it would have been better served with plain couscous or with a side of pita with which to sop up the liquid. That's not a knock against either the pistachio couscous or the finished tagine; The wonderful flavor and aroma of the couscous was lost, buried under the flavors of the tagine.