Sausage and Butternut Squash Stew

In conjunction with A Way To Garden and Dinner Tonight's continuing food fest, I am posting one of my favorite fall recipes ~ Sausage and Butternut Squash Stew. The topic of the food fest being winter squash and pumpkins of course.

Unfortunately, all my squash were eaten by beasts roaming my garden at night. But there is always a great selection in the store and farmer's markets this time of year. So if you end up with some Butternuts and you want a different way to cook them, try this recipe. It's an easy crock-pot one too! Feel free to add whatever vegetables you like to this stew. I've used sweet potatoes before in place of the squash and it turned out just fine.

Sausage and Butternut Squash Stew
From "giant book of super nutritious recipes" by Carol Heding Munson, Sandra L. Woodruff, and Bob Schwiers

1 1/2 pound Butternut Squash, peeled and cut into 3/4 inch cubes
1 medium potato, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 slender carrots, sliced diagonally 3/4 inch thick, or 12 baby carrots
1 cup frozen cut green beans
1 can (14 ounces) fat-free beef broth
1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
1/4 pound low-fat turkey sausage or light kielbasa, cut in half lengthwise and thickly sliced
4 small onions, halved
1/4 cup cold water
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
Snipped fresh parsley, for garnish

Combine the squash, potatoes, carrots, beans, broth, vinegar, pepper, and rosemary in an electric slow cooker.

Brown the sausage in a skillet over medium-high heat; add the onions and cook until the onions are lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Transfer the sausage and onions to the slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW until the vegetables are tender and the flavors have blended, 6 to 8 hours. In a measuring cup, mix the water and cornstarch, and pour the mixture into the stew. Mix well and heat (should be boiling) until the liquid has thickened. Garnish with parsley.

Squash and all things viney update!

Yesterday was such a beautiful day here in Western PA - blue sky, no humidity. Which meant I had to get out there and take care of some of those weeds, pick some squash, do some watering, and check on the general health of the garden. I still have more work to do, but lucky me, today is a repeat of yesterday, so I should be able to get back out there soon, for another full day in the garden.

Here are some squash I picked last week. The large one is another mystery squash. It seems to be a cross between a zucchini and spaghetti squash. It's leaves look like zucchini but it vines, and well, you see the result. It was a volunteer just like the rest of the squash shown in this picture. Once I decide what to do with it, I'll let you know how it turned out.

And here are the zucchini and yellow squash I picked yesterday. I think we'll be eating zucchini all weekend. But I should have a few new zucchini recipes to share with you next week.


Finally, I can see a baby cantaloupe. Hopefully it will start growing fast.


And here is another baby butternut squash. It's brother was munched by a deer, hopefully he will have a better fate and be munched by me! I just love the curl of the vine tendrils.


This one is a Kabocha squash, also known as Japanese pumpkin. It's a winter squash, similar to buttercup squash. It's my first year for this one and I'm excited.

This was another volunteer and another mystery. At first I thought it was going to be an acorn squash but now I think it's too rounded. It looks kind of melon like. Any ideas, anyone ?

And here was a nice surprise. This cucumber was a volunteer, growing in the bean patch. So maybe I will have some cucumbers before the end of August - lol!