The season at the Midtown Farmers Market officially ended in October, though some obsessive hoarding and a special winter market before Thanksgiving kept us supplied with fresh local produce into the beginnings of winter. Eventually though, we ate our way through our fresh supplies, leaving only a few cans of pickles and tomato sauce as well as some increasingly questionable ’storage’ shallots. For some reason — and that reason might very well have been a severe case of squash fatigue — there was one fresh vegetable that just wouldn’t go away: a Delicata squash that spent month after month untouched in our fruit bowl. That squash served as a reminder of the warmer, sunnier days of fall as we fought our daily battle of survival in the harsh Minnesota winter.

Eventually, though, the squash was due to meet its end, and there seemed no more appropriate time than our feast in celebration of Martha’s birthday. Cutting into our friend the squash — easily four months after it had been picked in mid-October — I was surprised at how well it had weathered the winter. It was certainly a bit dried out compared to what it would have been in the fall — especially the delicate threads on the inside — but the flesh was still firm and moist. I cut the squash cross-wise into rings, tossed them with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted them for twenty minutes. The flavor was as good as ever: sweet and tasting of pumpkins. Providing delicious local flavors in the dead of February, it’s enough to make one not revile the very thought of squash.

But, sadly, that is it for our fresh vegetables from Midtown; we’ll have to wait until the market starts to hit its stride again in late May before we can enjoy such treats  again.

Do It Green! Annual Green Gifts Fair

• Saturday, November 21st, 2009
• 10am to 5pm
• Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis on Lake St. & Chicago. Ave.
• FREE entrance (vendors accepting cash or check only, though, so come prepared!)

Do It Green! Minnesota’s Green Gifts Fair takes place this Saturday, conveniently before the crazed post-Thanksgiving shopping. Organizers envision the event as an introduction to green giving and low impact ideas to celebrate the holidays with over 70 vendors to explore. Shoppers are encouraged to bring their own bags and coffee mugs. If you plan to eat at Midtown while you shop, consider bringing silverware and a reusable napkin as well. Those who bike, bus, or carpool will receive a free gift at the event. More information doitgreen.org.

Gastro Non Grata: A Salute to Comfort Food and Cans

• Sunday, November 22, 2009
• Doors at 6pm
• 21+
• At the TRIPLE ROCK, 629 Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis
• $5 at the door, additional donations help Craig & Jeff break even.

Beer, food, and music! What more could you want? Northern Brewer will start the night with a Lambic tasting and chef Landon Schoenfeld will present three sample courses as the night goes on. The beer guest for the night is 21st Amendment Brewery. Music by Falcon Crest, Arctic Universe, School of Rock, Cadillac Kolstad, Cornbread Harris, and The Annandale Cardinals. As before, Clancey’s Meat and Fish will provide meat door prizes as only they can. More info at Gastro Non Grata’s blog.

Midtown Farmers’ Market’s Thanksgiving Market

• Wednesday, November 25, 2009
• 1pm to 4pm
• Lake Street and 22nd Ave S near the Light Rail in Minneapolis

Meat, vegetables, apples, bread, chocolates, and canned goods will all be available. Weather permitting there may be crafts as well. Real Bread bread will be available by advanced order: contact Brett at brettlaidlaw (at) eckmeier (dot) com for options. Hilltop Pastures will be at the market as well. According to the market website, they have a waiting list for turkeys, but they’ll be dropping off orders and selling other products on Wednesday. Thanks to midtownfarmersmarket.org for the details!

No exclamation points were harmed in the writing of this post!

It’s a cruel irony that heat of the late summer sun that produces perfect tomatoes and fragrant basil also makes our homes so hot that the thought of even turning on the oven — let alone cranking it up all the way for perfect pizzas margherita — is unbearable.  By the time I’m willing to endure the 500 degrees blasting away for over an hour necessary for decent pizza crust, the tomatoes are long rotten on the vine and the basil withered or brought indoors. Of course there are always canned tomatoes and greenhouse basil, but if you want to eat more in-season, you have to get a little more creative with your toppings (and loose with your definition of “pizza”).

Potato-Leek Pizza. This classic soup combination works reasonably well for pizza. The potatoes present a bit of a problem since the pizza only spends ten minutes in the oven; they need to be parcooked or sliced extremely thin. I opted for the latter and utilized a mandoline to make slices so thin that the skin of each slice could be seen through the flesh of the potato slice layered above it. A generous shower of olive oil combined with the blazing temperature of the oven slightly fries the potato slices. A sprinkling of leeks and a few cubes of feta completed a pizza of which Martha claimed, “tastes like soup.” In a good way, I think.

Butternut squash-gorgonzola-walnut Pizza. After a well deserved period of squash abstinence, I decided to get back into it by combining one of my least favorite foods — said squash — with one of my favorites: pizza. After sauteeing cubes of butternut squash until tender, I mashed them with butter and enough milk to make the mixture spread easily, then aggressively salted and peppered the mix. To offset the bland sweetness of squash, I used musty, tangy gorgonzola cheese. Both butternut squash and gorgonzola are well complemented by nuts, so I sprinkled on toasted walnuts after baking the pie.

A word of caution to anyone attempting squash pizza: that squash can retain a whole lot of oven heat for a long time. Give yourself extra cooling time before taking a bite! When the pizza did cool down to a reasonable tasting temperature, my taste buds that had not been burned away told me that this was a winning combination, at least as far as anything involving squash can be. Although the gorgonzola tended to overpower the squash, I had applied it with a light hand, so the cheese was well balanced by zones of pure squash. The walnuts were the pepperoni of this pizza, providing spots of excitement amongst the more uniform cheese and crust.

I enjoyed both of these pizzas. They’re not about to replace pizza margherita in my heart, but as a way to use those last late-season farmers’ market veggies — and enjoy a sustained heatwave issuing forth from your oven in the chilly fall — they were pretty good.

It was with some sadness (and wistful thoughts of future Saturday mornings spent sleeping in) that Martha and I mounted our noble bicycles and set out on the ride to the last official Midtown Farmers’ Market of the 2009 season. The weather, while generally cloudy, was punctuated by bursts of sunlight and dominated by a steady autumn wind that elicited some speculation from vendors about how long they would last out there. But they are a hardy bunch and I’m sure they saw the market through to the end (I sure didn’t!).

As promised, I did a good job attacking the crisper drawer over the course of the last week such that we were left with only a bunch of celery and some lemongrass. Which meant it was time to stock up, all the more so since this was the last farmers market of the year before a long winter. Much of my buying took this long view into account by focusing on vegetables that store well: onions, three kinds of potatoes (russets, large red potatoes, and small red potatoes), carrots, parsnips and butternut squash. The real joy of the farmers’ market for me is the fresh, green food: brussels sprouts, broccoli and leeks. Those will be missed later in the year. And it wouldn’t be the fall farmers’ market in Minnesota without apples; I couldn’t resist a ¼ peck of Honeycrisps.

For her part, Martha couldn’t resist some letter press cards by regular market vendors Vandalia Street Press that make use of interesting figure-ground relationships. Nor could she resist including them in the photo of the market haul!

Although this was the last official farmers’ market at Midtown of the fall, there will be more opportunities to get delicious local produce. I will definitely be going to the Midtown Farmers’ Market fundraiser at the Minneapolis Eagles Club (2507 E 25th St) on November 14 where in addition to raffles and music and the usual fundraising hullabaloo there will be a farmers’ market set up in the parking lot. A pretty great way to support a worthy cause while selfishly stocking up on the best vegetables around! (And very conveniently situated before Thanksgiving.) But if planning ahead for Thanksgiving isn’t your thing, Brett of Real Bread informed me that there will also be a special market at the usual place on Wednesday, November 25 from 1–4 PM. Even though the official market season’s over, the Midtown Farmers’ Market won’t leave you out in the cold for great produce this winter.

Let me start by saying I don’t like squash. I kind of hate it. It’s certainly not an aesthetic objection: nothing brightens up the drear of the fall farmers’ market quite like all the whimsical varieties of winter squash — impossible to resist! This combination of compulsive buying and strong dislike leads me to accumulate squash in the fall. Earlier this month, our squash collection reached critical mass and it was time for desperate measures. And so the idea was born: the week of squash. We would cook and eat a different squash each day for five days. At the end of the week, we would have finished our kuri, delicata, acorn, butternut and spaghetti squashes. And I would either have learned to love squash or never need to eat it again.

Day 1 Curried Kuri Squash Soup

Not wanting to be too ambitious the first day, I went for an old standard: squash soup. Most of the versions of this I’ve had are sweetened with brown sugar and pretty fatiguing after just a few spoonfuls. To try to make it a little more interesting, I attempted squash mulligatawny; a squash-based version of the citrusy Angl0-Indian soup. After peeling and steaming my kuri squash, I pureed the flesh with some of the steaming liquid, and added ginger and curry powder. Back in the pot, I added a bit of cream and some lime juice. For garnish, I made a mint-cilantro-garlic yogurt sauce, dolloped generously in the center

Squash Hatred Level: 6. The squash was pretty passable, but I think I was a little too heavy-handed with the lime juice; the soup was overly sour. The yogurt sauce helped improve the soup’s flavor, but as is often the case with squash soup (for me, anyway) a few bites was enough.

Day 2 Delicata Squash Enchiladas

This dish was inspired by a post on Serious Eats and an email I received from my Aunt Ann talking about having made enchiladas using squash with chard, feta and onions. I kind of took the worst parts of both of these ideas, ignoring their saving graces, and added some even nastier elements. So my ‘enchiladas’ contained: roasted delicata squash, kale, never-tender-enough-sauteed chard stems, charred red peppers and onions, and cilantro. After preparing my fillings and tossing them in a bowl with the recommended enchilada sauce, I rolled enchiladas, topped them with more sauce and covered the dish with a healthy (or hopefully unhealthy) dose of pepper-jack and put it in the oven to bake.

Squash Hatred Level: 8. The squash soup was not good, but it was okay. These enchiladas, on the other hand, were just nasty. Even as I was putting the recipe together, I could feel the train-wreck beginning. Eliminating the black beans and the feta was obviously a mistake. And in my overzealous cleaning of the crisper drawer I didn’t think about why combining kale and chard stems was a terrible, terrible idea. The only salvation for this dish would have been a lot more sauce and/or a lot more cheese, and preferably just those things. At this point I was getting pretty discouraged about squash week.

Day 3 Stuffed Roast Acorn Squash

With exotic reimaginings of squash having utterly failed me in the beginning of the week, it was time to turn to a stand-by. Growing up, this was how I knew squash: an acorn squash, cut in half, stuffed with pork sausage, and roasted until both were nicely browned. Of course, as a child, I would only eat the sausage, though I did eventually learn to also eat the squash, provided it was mashed together with plenty of butter, salt and pepper.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 6. This is actually a very good way to enjoy squash: pork loves a sweet compliment and finds a great one in the flesh of the squash, and the pork fat mingled tantalizingly with the squash. I hardly needed any butter at all!

Day 4 Spaghetti Squash and Broccoli Gratin

I suppose the star of this meal is actually in the background of the above photo: slow-cooked duck legs with a red wine pan sauce. But squash is the point of this post, and squash we did have to the side of our duck. For this gratin, I combined the flesh of a roasted spaghetti squash with steamed broccoli and a generous handful of New Zealand cheddar cheese in a buttered gratin dish. I topped the mixture off with bread crumbs tossed together with parmesan cheese and baked the dish until the breadcrumbs were brown and the cheese bubbly.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 4. This dish had a good level of sweetness without descending into sweet potato pie territory, and the combination of textures — the still slightly crisp broccoli, the gooey squash and cheese, and the crunchy breadcrumbs — was interesting and pleasant.

Day 5 Butternut Squash Spaetzle

I kind of dread butternut squash because it is so popular and tends to get so repetitive. How many butternut squash raviolis have you seen on restaurant menus in the past five years? So I was very grateful when Serious Eats featured a recipe for butternut squash spaetzle. I mean, I have long wanted to learn to make spaetzle, and if I could liven up squash week in the process, all the better. I also thought the recipe an appropriate wrap-up to squash week, since squash figures into the spaetzle dough as well as being a part of the sauce (I guess the ultimate wrap-up to squash week would have involved all five squash varieties in some kind of squash explosion but even contemplating that makes me a little sick). The recipe was pretty easy to follow; I only screwed up in over-cooking the maple glaze to the point where it wasn’t so much a maple glaze as maple candy. Luckily, the dishes were for Martha.

Squash Deliciousness Level: 8. This dish did a really good job of using the sweetness of butternut squash as an accent while bringing in a variety of other flavors and textures to avoid palate fatigue. Although recommended as a side dish, it made a great light lunch on a fall day.

And so the week of squash ended. Although it wasn’t planned this way, after a couple of rocky starts the meals got progressively better; by the end of the week I could even say I almost liked squash. I suppose I will be able to eat it in the future. But five days in a row again? Probably not.

In its penultimate week the Midtown Farmers’ Market is still loaded with fresh produce: squash, cabbage, peppers, turnips, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, more squash, leafy greens, onions, potatoes, herbs — even some tomatoes of dubious quality. If the above photo doesn’t quite reflect this variety it says more about me than the current state of the market: I was feeling a little burned out this Saturday morning. For one thing, the crisper drawer in our fridge was still full of produce from last week’s trip and other trips prior. We’re also in the midst of a season whose produce leaves me uninspired. So I consult my resources and wrack my brain to try to figure out some new, creative use for that last butternut squash. I hate to sound spoiled complaining in the face of all this beautiful fall produce, but I don’t feel the same about late October veggies as I do about the late August corn-tomatoes-peppers bonanza.

In spite of my whiny depression, we did manage to pick up a decent haul of produce from the market this Saturday: brussels sprouts, a delicata squash, cauliflower, celery, honey, fingerling potatoes, and a half peck of Haralson apples (pro tip: #2 apples are half price and look the same as #1s in a pie). Martha also picked up a nice crop of CFL light bulbs from the Minnesota Energy Challenge.

Next week is the last week of the farmers’ market. I am determined to not let this week’s malaise creep into the season finale; to that end I have formulated a strategy for almost entirely clearing the crisper drawer by week’s end. Hopefully an empty larder and the threat of winter will put me in the right mindset to BUY BUY BUY.

After biking to the Midtown Farmers’ Market in the dead of winter last week, I am happy to report that winter seems to be over in Minnesota and we’ve jumped back into fall. With a sunny blue sky and temperatures that require only a light jacket provided you keep moving, this was one of those great days to be at the farmers’ market taking advantage of the last of the season’s produce.

In spite of my dire predictions due to last week’s frost (and overriding pessimism brought on by early October snow), the supply of fresh produce at the market remains ample. There are even still peppers and tomatoes, although not necessarily of the same quality they were in late August (I passed on these the last few weeks). But I was happy to see there was still red kale, turnips with their greens on, potatoes, brussels sprouts and onions; all the makings of fall feasting food.

We also bought bacon from Chase Brook Natural. You can see in the picture that it is not streaked lengthwise with long strands of fat. That’s because this is cottage bacon — bacon is made from the shoulder of the pig, rather than its belly. It is a meatier, less fatty bacon (which isn’t necessarily a good thing). It will go well alongside eggs and toast at breakfast.

There are only two weekends left for the Midtown Farmers’ Market, but I continue to be amazed at all that is available.

There’s something perverse about biking across a snow-covered city to get to the farmers’ market — particularly when it’s only 10 days in to October. But that was the situation we faced this morning as we headed out to the Midtown Farmers’ Market. There are a few weekends left for the market, but with snow (and, more critically, frost) here the vegetables will be thinning out (Gardens of Eagan recently tweeted about a slushy head of broccoli they pulled from the field) as will the market shoppers, until only the die-hards remain.

Frost only came in the last week, so farmers still had plenty to offer. Feeling that our diet was lacking in things green — a problem which only worsens during the winter — we bought broccoli, parsley and kale. We also bought three kinds of squash: acorn, spaghetti and delicata. With the squash from last week, I now have five distinct varieties of squash sitting in a bowl in my dining room. Clearly, some kind of squashstravaganza is called for.

As if five squash weren’t enough starchy, orange-fleshed, sweet vegetable, we bought sweet potatoes, in a 2 for $5 with Russets. We also bought garlic to store (although garlic doesn’t last long around here). And, after a successful apple tart last night, we bought more of the Haralsons that were sold to us last week as the ultimate baking apple . Finally, we got a loaf of honey-wheat bread from Brett and Mary of Real Bread.

As we were buying the sweet potatoes from Julie of Pflaum Farms she mentioned that her mom kept talking about sweet potato fries. That seemed like a good idea to us; when we got home we roasted a few of the sweet potatoes, cut into sticks and tossed with oil, salt, pepper and thyme. The fries accompanied sandwiches made on Brett and Mary’s bread with mayo, turkey from last night’s dinner, roasted red peppers and black beans. Washed down with cider, this made for a nice lunch on a snowy fall day.

We braved cold temperatures and persistent drizzle this Saturday for the Midtown Farmers’ Market and a wide selection of vegetables was our reward. I bought chard, cabbage, beets, three kinds of squash (delicata, kuri, and butternut — all part of this fall’s quest to embrace squash), Haralson apples (the ultimate pie apple?), red peppers, leeks, tiny eggplants (destined for brine), small onions, parsnips, and lemongrass — which is as close as I am going to get to local lemons.

With the season almost over, it’s interesting to compare prices now to the beginning of the year. Chard was $4 in June. In October, with everybody charded-out, a bunch can be had for $1, as can a bunch of beets.

Or, take the roma tomatoes we bought (not pictured). At the beginning of tomato season farmers put out crates for those with ambitious and foresightful canning plans, charging $15-20. This weekend, we were able to get a milk-crate’s worth of romas for an unbelievable $5. The tomatoes are so heavy that I can’t weigh them on my scale, but I think it’s safe to say this was a deal. The tomatoes have probably seen better days; they’re ripe almost to the point of rotting and some of them were moldy (our farmer was kind enough to sort those out for us). But that makes them all the better for making sauce with.

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.