When a new vegetable first comes in to season, all I want to do with it is prepare it as simply as possible. A little fat, a little seasoning, and let the vegetable speak for itself. The year’s first asparagus? Lightly steam it and toss it with butter and salt. Sweet corn? Shuck, boil and enjoy slathered in butter and plenty of salt and pepper. Tomatoes? They require little more than slicing, a drizzle of olive oil and grains of sea salt.

But there comes a point, especially as a season seems to drag on, when simple preparations start to get a little tiresome, and I start trying to think of new ways to use up the half-dozen ears of corn I feel compelled to buy every week while the season lasts.

Squash, now firmly in season, is a vegetable that easily fits this pattern. I love roasted squash mashed with butter and salt as much as the next guy, but it doesn’t take very long before I start to find the squash’s sweetness and its squishiness daunting. I enjoy the occasional squash soup, but once a year is really enough. So with an eye to heading off squash fatigue, I offer an interesting, if a little labor-intensive way to use up those fall squash: bisteeya.

Bisteeya is a Moroccan sweet/savory pie filled with shredded meat and nuts. In her book Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean, Ana Sortun offers a vegetarian version using sweet potatoes. I adapted her version to use the red Kuri squash I bought at the farmers’ market in place of the potatoes. The North African flavors in this dish are a nice accent to the squash and a welcome relief from more straightforward presentations.

Squash Bisteeya

• 1 Kuri squash, about 1.5#
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 1 Large onion, minced
• 1/8 Teaspoon turmeric
• Pinch saffron threads, crumbled
• 1 Teaspoon grated ginger
• Salt
• ¾ Teaspoon black pepper
• 4 Eggs, beaten
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
• ¼ Cup parsley, chopped
• ¼ Cup cilantro, chopped
• ¾ Walnuts (Sortun uses pine nuts, but I substituted walnuts—what we had on hand)
• ¼ Cup powdered sugar
• 2 Teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ½ Cup extra virgin olive oil
• 9 Sheets phyllo dough

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cut squash in half and scoop out seeds. Coat inside of squash with a light film of oil and roast until fork-tender, 45 minutes to an hour. Remove squash from oven and allow to cool.

While squash is roasting, melt and slightly brown the butter. Add the onion, turmeric and saffron. Lower the heat to medium-low and cook until onions are softened but not at all brown. Stir in ginger and set aside.

When squash is cool enough to handle, scoop the flesh out of the skin and into the bowl of a food processor. Purée the squash until creamy, adding ½ to ¾ cup of water as necessary to keep everything moving in the food processor. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add eggs, lemon juice, parsley and cilantro and blend until smooth. Transfer to a mixing bowl and stir in onion mixture. Add a little more salt.

Toast the walnuts in a skillet or in the oven until darkened and fragrant. Allow to cool then coarsely chop. Mix with sugar and cinnamon (when I made this I actually forgot the cinnamon and sugar. It was still good, but I have made it in the past with cinnamon and sugar and would recommend remembering them.)

Brush the bottom of a 9″ cake pan with olive oil. Place one sheet of phyllo dough on the counter and brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with 1 Tablespoon of the nuts. Top with another sheet of phyllo dough and repeat. Add a third sheet, brushing it with oil.

Carefully lay this assembly of three sheets of dough in the cake pan. The edges of the dough should overlap the sides of the pan. Assemble another set of phyllo sheets in same manner and lay it in the cake pan on top of the first set, but perpendicular. Press the dough to the sides of the pan and fill with squash mixture. Make a third set of three sheets of dough and lay it over the top of the squash mixture, then fold over the edges of the bottom sheets of dough so the entire pie is covered.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until puffy and golden brown.

Cut pie into wedges and dust with powdered sugar. Serve with a light salad. Part of the pleasure of this dish is the crispy phyllo crust — which your refrigerator will do nothing for — so it’s best to eat this all immediately.

Tom and I enjoyed an afternoon of grape picking at St. Croix Vineyards on Saturday. The staff at the Vineyards started us off with lunch and wine, then we headed out into the vines for a lesson in picking.

We used clippers to remove the bunches of grapes and any dried or bird/bee eaten ones in the bunch. All grapes—good or bad—had to be removed so the vines would know it was time to get ready for winter. Bad ones were dropped unceremoniously to the ground while the worthy grapes were tossed into yellow lugs, for easy collection later.

I wore my own gloves, but most of the volunteers worked bare-handed. Pickers who are paid by the pound, according to the vineyard staff, tape metal talons to their fingers to enable them to pick quickly, Wolverine-style. We were glad we weren’t being paid by the pound.

At the end of the day, we were repaid for our hard labor with two bottles of wine each — that’s a half a bottle of wine an hour. Not bad for an afternoon’s work.

marthaandtom’s Grape Harvesting at St. Croix Vineyards photoset

Another weekend at the Midtown Farmers’ Market brought an impressive, but dwindling, bounty of vegetables. The late summer fruits — bell peppers and tomatoes — are clinging on to life even as the impending frost threatens to cut them off without warning. Their bright reds, oranges and yellows are starting to be crowded out by the earth-tones of the fall harvest: brassicas from root (turnips) to leaf (brussels sprouts, cabbage) to flower (cauliflower, broccoli); large carrots, onions and potatoes with hardy skins are waiting to fill root cellars for the winter (you have started filling your root cellar, haven’t you?). Sweet potatoes made their first appearance this week — their tender bulbs begging me to wrap them in foil, toss them in smoldering coals and eat them, steaming, right out of their jackets.  Green beans, which appear to be one of the longest-seasoned crops of all in Minnesota, seemed a proper compliment to this kind of food: good, hearty fare that makes you feel like a true Midwesterner.

It is hard to believe that there is only a month left in the market season; once October’s over, that’s it for convenient local produce buying. But while the season starts off a little slowly, it comes to a much more plentiful end; the last month of the market still promises plenty of good food.

The worst part about living an apartment is that we can’t garden (the best part is never having to mow a lawn or shovel a driveway). Sure, we can put a box or pot in the window that will yield a pepper or a little bundle of herbs, but it’s nothing compared to what even the smallest yard will produce with modest effort. Luckily, at this time of year our home-owning friends are starting to get overwhelmed by the bounty of their gardens — a combination of guilt in wasting a single hard-won veggie and the feeling that if one eats another eggplant that’s it for them — and Tom and I can swoop in to reap the benefits save the day. And so it was that Friday after work Tom and I raided my friend Alan’s garden while Alan was away at work and his dogs safely locked up inside the house.

Alan grows long, thin Japanese cucumbers, a variety of tomatoes, and many other types of vegetables and herbs. Along the side of his house he’s created a system of trusses to support a high density of tomatoes and peppers, using strings and posts to support the plants. In the back, he has another garden along the fence where cucumbers share space with onions, celery, beets, greens, and more. Looking at it all we were amazed with what can be grown in a well-planned, small space.

Not wanting to take more than our share (though Alan would certainly have encouraged more on us had he been there), we gathered a bowlful of black cherry tomatoes, three cucumbers, and a sampling of tiny peppers and basil. Tom put together a Greek salad with the cucumbers and tomatoes — and mint and oregano from our own window box. Thanks Alan!

For the salad, combine the following in a large bowl:

• Cherry tomatoes, halved
• Cucumbers, peeled and sliced
• Greek Feta cheese, crumbled by hand
• 1 large shallot, sliced
• 2 sprigs fresh mint, finely chopped
• 2 sprigs fresh oregano, finely chopped

For the dressing:

• Juice of 1 lemon
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sumac
• Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Whisk the dressing and taste for seasoning. Pour over the salad and toss.

The light chill today was a reminder that fall — my favorite cooking season — is upon us. Fall brings many hearty possibilities ruled out by summer’s heat; suddenly it is possible, even desirable, to have the oven on for a few hours. Enter the braise—meat and vegetables stewed in rich liquid until tender.

This particular recipe was inspired by the small cabbages that Martha insisted we buy at the farmers’ market. When I saw them, my mind wandered to the bowl of crab apples sitting at home and the thick-cut pork chops I keep wanting to buy at Clancey’s. And so a braise was born.

Braised Pork, Apples and Cabbage

Some of the visual appeal of this dish is from the small (5″ diameter) cabbages that we found at the farmers’ market. If only large cabbages are available, use one, roughly chopped, and omit the browning step for the cabbage. Four regularly-sized, tart apples can be substituted for the crab apples; cut them into eighths, rather than quarters.

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 2# bone-in pork roast
• Salt and pepper
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 2 fennel stalks or a small bulb, roughly chopped
• 1 quart pork stock (recipe below), cider or water
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 3 small heads cabbage
• 8 crab apples (about 2″ in diameter)
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 300°F.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large Dutch oven (one that has an oven-proof lid) over medium-high heat. Thoroughly coat the pork roast with salt and pepper. Place the pork in the Dutch oven and brown on all sides, a few minutes per side. Remove the pork to a plate and drain all but 1 tablespoon of fat. Return pot to medium heat and add the onions and fennel. Cook until onions are soft and starting to brown. Add garlic cloves, pork roast, and enough pork stock/cider/water to come most of the way up the side of the roast. Bring to a boil, cover and place in oven. Cook for one hour.

Meanwhile, cut the cabbages into quarters. Cut the apples into quarters and slice out their cores. Heat remaining one tablespoon of olive oil in a 12″ skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add apple slices, cut side down. Cook until deep golden brown, about 4 minutes. Nudge the apples to the other cut side and cook until brown. Transfer apples to a plate. Place cabbage in skillet, one cut side down, and cook until starting to blacken on the edges. Flip the cabbage to the other cut side and repeat. Transfer cabbage to a plate.

After one hour of cooking, remove Dutch oven from oven. Taste the liquid and add salt and pepper as desired. Add cabbage, apples and vinegar and stir to combine. Arrange the pot so the liquid mostly covers everything. Return to oven and cook for another one hour, or until the pork is tender, but not necessarily falling off the bone.

Strain the liquid into a stockpot or large skillet. Return the solids to Dutch oven and cover to keep warm. Bring braising liquid to a rolling boil and continue cooking until reduced by half (or, until you’re tired of waiting). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Arrange apples, cabbage, onions and fennel in a wide, shallow serving bowl. Slice or pull pork and arrange in center of vegetables. Pour reduced braising liquid over top of everything. Serve with hearty bread for sopping up the juice.

Quick Pork Broth:

Just in case you don’t have pork stock sitting around in the freezer (you might want to check in the back), here’s a quick way to get a flavorful broth that will work well as a braising liquid for pork.

• ¼# Ground pork
• Half an onion, roughly chopped (or onion scraps)
• 1 small carrot, roughly chopped

Combine all ingredients in a 2 quart saucepan. Add 4 ½ cups of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a bare simmer and allow to cook, partially covered, for one hour. Strain off the solids and discard.