Pumpkin and squash

[andrewo]

Now I may be being dense - you can all say 'dense boy' if you wish - but I had a lovely pumpkin and apple crumble recently. And its really interested me in growing these much maligned fruits (or are they a vegetable?). However have missed the boat this year and wanted to try my hand at the recipe. Found only squashes at the supermarket, are these the same? And more importatntly does anyone have a good recipe for pumpkin and apple crumble?

Andrewo

[sewer rat]

Andrew0

Try the following link for a recipe for aple and pumpkin crumble - it says tart but recipe shows a crumble topping!

http://judaism.about.com/od/thinkfal...kinapptart.htm

Let me know if you make this and what it was like - I am a huge fan of pumpkin pie with fresh cream - could eat it til make myself sick - but then I have a sweet tooth and could eat lots of things til I feel sick !!

Rat

[andrewo]

So what's a squash?

I have a sweet squash, is this a pumpkin? I know nothing of pumpkins! Thanks for the recipe sounds lovely.

Andrewo

[dragonz]

correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know pumkins are a type of winter squash.
there are summer squashes like courgetts which have softer skins and dont keep as long as the winter ones, they ripen in july/august ish
then tehre are the winter squashes which have hard skins like pumkins and butternut squash, which store very well and can be harvested from sept until the frost starts or the plant dies down.

squashes are brilliant for sweet or savoury dishes and you can usually exchange one type of squash for another in recipies

hope this helps

[andrewo]

Didn't work

Tried it with the sweet squash, and the crumble was a failure - so dry. A shame, will try again but with a pumpkin next time!

Andrewo

[Lesley Jay]

Andrew go to www.bbc.co.uk/food They have lots of pumpkin and squash recipes. I am sure you will find some good ones.

[caz1]

tried to print from the site but all I kept getting was the pop up advertisement, can you help

[Lesley Jay]

Caz the problem I have at the moment with the BBC site is that I cannot get the recipe search to work. Another good site with tons of recipes is www.uktvfood.co.uk You can have your own recipe book there to store recipes.

[Shortie]

Hiya.... something I finally have experience on!!

Okay, it depends on the size of the squash and pumpkin mainly to how sweet it is. I grew asome butternut squash last year which was quite small (but the plant is huge and takes over the garden given half a chance)... Now the one I grew is quite sweet and sweetens further as it ripens in boxes under the stairs.

Larger squashes and pumpkins have a more 'diluted' flavour, hence the larger carving pumpkins aren't always recomended for eating as they're grown for size....

Not sure if this helps.. but one final point to mention is that if you are growing pumpkin or squash, it's best to manually pollenate the flowers as they don't always successfully manage it themselves.

[blossom]

Ohhh, I never thought of doing something like that, sounds lovely.