The absolute nadir of last year’s ill-conceived Five Days of Squash was my squash enchiladas. Coated in too little sauce and packed with tough greens (and their even tougher stems) that had no possibility of getting tender, the resulting squash enchiladas were bad enough to turn me off to the concept for at least a year.

The problem with that first attempt was that I was more focused on cleaning out the crisper drawer than on what might actually taste good. Determined not to make that mistake again, for this year’s version I left out the hearty winter greens and instead added black beans, onions, cumin, cayenne pepper, and good Mexican melting cheese. The only concession I made to refrigerator-emptying was using leftover salsa verde from last week’s tongue tacos (warning: pictures of tongue) as the sauce.

If you are looking for a way to use some late-season winter squash you could do much worse than these enchiladas — I might even consider buying a squash just to make them.

Squash Enchiladas

• 1 small kuri squash, halved and seeded
• ½ medium onion, diced small
• 1 tsp cumin
• ¼ tsp cayenne
• ¼ tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 (14.5 oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 8 oz chihuahua, monterey jack, or other good melting cheese, shredded
• 10-12 corn tortillas
• Salsa Verde (See recipe at bottom of this post)
• 1 green onion, sliced thin

Heat oven to 400ºF. Rub exposed flesh of squash with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast on a sheet pan, cut side down, until flesh is tender and skin is spotted-brown, about 45 minutes.

While squash is roasting, cook the onions with olive oil in a large skillet over medium until edges begin to brown. Stir in spices and salt and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add black beans and keep stirring, cooking until the mixture is heated through. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl.

Use a spoon to scrape squash flesh off skin into the bowl with the beans and onions. Add most of the cheese, reserving some to top the dish. (Cilantro would be great here too, but I didn’t have any on hand.) Toss.

Spread a layer of salsa verde to cover the bottom of an 8″ square baking dish.

Warm the tortillas in the microwave or on the stovetop to make them pliable. Fill each tortilla with about a half cup of the squash-bean mixture, then roll and place seam-side down in prepared baking dish. Repeat until the dish is full. Top with salsa verde to cover. Sprinkle on reserved cheese. Bake 30-35 minutes, until cheese starts to brown.

When the enchiladas are done baking, top with sliced green onions. Serve with sour cream and additional salsa verde.

I wish I could tell you that what follows is my grandmother’s world-famous recipe for beef tongue, a treasured family secret passed down through the generations. It is not. While I expect my grandma has a beef tongue recipe — she grew up on a farm, after all — that recipe would never have made it past my dad, who would often tell us horror stories of being forced to eat tongue when he was growing up. Needless to say, tongue did not make an appearance on my childhood table.

For whatever reason, though — the trendiness of tongue tacos, foodie cred, etc. — I recently felt a strong compulsion to cook a tongue. With no recipe from either of my real grandmothers, I turned to my surrogate grandmother: the Internet. A quick survey of the top four or five search results for “Tacos de Lengua” revealed consensus on the cooking method: place the tongue in a pot with aromatics and water to cover, bring to a boil and then simmer a few hours. When the tongue exhibits some signs of tenderness, allow it to cool in the braising liquid, then remove it from the pot, peel off the white skin with a sharp knife and slice. Fun and delicious!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: before doing any of that I needed a tongue. As of this spring there has been a new meat vendor at the Midtown Farmers Market — Hilltop Pastures Family Farm — who among many other delicious offerings listed tongue for sale. I was offered a large tongue or a small tongue and opted for small. A minute later on the counter before me was a 1.58# beef tongue, frozen and plastic-wrapped, for $1.54. That’s right — I paid 99¢ per pound. Damn those chi-chi farmers market prices! (Incidentally: this Saturday — October 30 — is the last Midtown Farmers Market of the year.) I’d advise you to get these great deals while you can before beef tongue is the new flank steak, selling for $12.99/lb.

Having been denied (or spared) tongue as a child, I didn’t know what to expect as I let the meat thaw in the refrigerator over the next few days. Well, what I should have expected was a giant cow tongue, because that’s what I got. This was not meat sliced up and plastic wrapped on a neat foam tray from the grocery store! My tongue came complete with the rough skin familiar from a cat’s tongue and a black spot at the base that was just enough to remind me of a cute little black and white spotted cow in the field. I could almost hear it mooing at me.

As perhaps you can tell, I was slightly grossed-out at this point. But hey, I eat animals, and animals have tongues, so I pressed on, placing the tongue in a pot with cilantro, half an onion, a few cloves of garlic, some peppercorns, dried oregano and a couple of dried chiles then filled it with water to cover. After bringing it to a boil I left the tongue to simmer for three hours, adding water as necessary to keep the tongue submerged.

The raw tongue put me a little ill-at-ease; that in no way prepared me for what the tongue would be like when it emerged from the pot. Cooking had contracted the muscle, so when it was removed the tongue was arched in perfect tongue-like position: it was not hard to imagine this thing sitting in the mouth of a happy heifer. As if this weren’t disturbing enough, I was now expected to peel the skin off with a sharp knife. But again, the cow had been killed, and what could be more respectful to the animal at this point than making best use of all of its parts? So I donned my best Hannibal Lecter face, selected a sharp paring knife, and began peeling off that rough skin in large pieces. Too bad fava beans are out of season.

Although I wouldn’t describe peeling skin off of a cooked tongue as one of the most pleasant experiences in my life, the reward when the job is done is that the tongue begins to look like any other piece of cooked beef. Slicing it makes the meat even less tongue-like. Since I was preparing the tongue the night before, I stored the slices in the refrigerator and cleaned up the rest of the evidence.

Before putting the container away for the night, I did sneak a taste of the tongue. Hopeful though I was that this 99¢/lb meat would be delicious enough to eat on a weekly basis, I didn’t love the flavor. Although there was some beefiness there was also a strong mineral taste — the kind you sometimes get from organ meats. I am willing to admit this is probably due to the way I cooked it — is anything at its best boiled for three hours? If I make tongue in the future, I will try braising it for longer in a more flavorful, thicker sauce.

To finish the tacos the next day, I cut the slices of tongue into a medium dice — a step Martha appreciated for its further obfuscation of the origins of the meat — and fried the dice in a little oil to produce some flavorful browning. Before serving the tacos, I mixed the meat in the pan with a little salsa verde (recipe follows), which I also served on the side. With sour cream, cilantro, fresh radish slices and warm corn tortillas, I think even my dad would try one.

Salsa Verde

• 1.5# tomatillos, husked
• 1 medium red onion, peeled and cut into quarters
• 1 poblano chile, halved and seeded
• Several bunches cilantro
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press
• Salt
• Fresh citrus juice (lime is ideal but I used the juice of 1 lemon because I had it on hand)

Heat the broiler. Place tomatillos, onion and chile on a sheet pan and broil until brown spots start to appear, about 5 minutes in my broiler. Place onions, chiles, garlic and cilantro in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to chop roughly. Add tomatillos and process until consistency is as desired. Transfer mixture to a bowl and adjust seasoning with citrus and salt.

With the feast of our Lady of Guadalupe right around the corner — tomorrow, in fact — I took the opportunity to become acquainted with one of the most important traditions surrounding this sacred festival: tamales. While I’m an avid tamale consumer, I’ve never actually made them. So when I heard the kitchen at Church of the Ascension would be open last Saturday for anyone wanting to learn the art of corn-filled corn husks, I jumped at the chance.

The bill of fare for the evening included three kinds of tamales: chicken, pork and sweet. The chicken tamales were based on pulled chicken in salsa verde — tomatillos, cilantro, onion, etc. Some of the salsa verde also went into the masa, which otherwise consisted of maseca, lard, chicken broth and seasonings. The ingredients for the pork tamales were similar, except in place of salsa verde there was a salsa roja made from a whole lot of red peppers with garlic and herbs, and in place of the pulled chicken, pulled pork. The sweet tamales had the simplest masa of all, flavored only with a bit of sugar and filled with a prune.

The process for making all of the tamales was essentially the same: place a healthy handful of masa near the top and in the center of a presoaked corn husk, being sure to place the masa on the slightly smoother side (a subtle distinction to this güero’s hands). Stick the appropriate filling in the middle of the masa, then roll the edge of the corn husk over the filling, rotating slighly to form a rough cylinder. Fold up the bottom half of the corn husk and set aside.

Sweet tamales were a little different: before adding the masa, a thin layer of red food coloring is painted on the husk. As the tamales sit and later cook, this coloring soaks through the dough and imbues it with a bright pink hue. In addition to coloring the masa, the food coloring dyed my hands a bright-red. My mentors laughingly told me it would come off with a little bleach.

Watching experienced hands making tamales, I was struck by the differing techniques. Some were very meticulous, carefully spreading masa across the interior of the corn husk, laying the filling in a tight row in the center, then rolling everything so that the meat would be perfectly centered in a row of corn masa. Others took a more industrial approach, quickly plopping down a pile of masa before shoving some filling in the center, rolling, folding and starting another. A few rolled their tamales cigar-style,but others simply folded, ending each one with a firm pat. Regional and family variations abound.

I didn’t stay long enough to see the tamales get cooked, but I heard vastly differing claims as to how long they would need to steam, everywhere from a half an hour to four hours. The deciding factor seemed to be how many tamales one was steaming at once.

Where to get these delicious tamales? The ones I helped make were served at the Basilica of Saint Mary last weekend as part of a cooperative effort between the two parishes. But the official feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe is December 12th, and if you want to be at Ascension (1723 Bryant Ave N) at 5:30 AM for Las Mañanitas and 7 AM for mass, your reward will be delicious tamales and hot coffee. And if you’re not a morning person, there will be a fiesta starting around 4 PM. But with the skills I picked up in Ascension’s basement last weekend, I might just make some all for myself.

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.

Summer weather of the unbearable sort finally arrived last weekend to the Twin Cities and left me craving light, fresh flavors. Hence, fish tacos! Here’s the recipe if you are so inclined.

Fish:

• Filet of a fish of your choice; our’s was cod
• Flour
• A few eggs
• 1 cup cornmeal
• A handful of parsley, minced
• Green onion, minced
• 2 T paprika
• 1 t cayenne
• Salt and black pepper
• Oil for frying

Cut the fish into pieces of approximately equal size. What size? That depends on your preference and your fish. I managed to get pretty even 4″x1″x½” pieces. Prepare a breading station: fill one wide, shallow vessel with flour and season with salt and pepper. Prepare another with beaten egg. In a third, place the combination of cornmeal, a 1/2 cup of flour, the parsley, the green onion, the paprika, the cayenne, and a little pepper.

Now you are ready to bread the fish. Observe a strict “wet hand, dry hand” regime: designate which hand is wet hand and which hand is dry hand and don’t deviate from them for a second so help you God. Take your wet hand and pick up a piece or two of fish and drop it in the seasoned flour. Use your dry hand to splash a little flour over the exposed pieces of fish flesh so as to avoid any “wet” contamination. Toss the fish around to make sure it is well-coated in flour, shake off the excess, and deposit it in the egg wash using your dry hand, avoiding getting any egg on said hand. Use your wet hand to coat the fish in egg, and after shaking off the excess drop it in the cornmeal mixture. Use your dry hand to move the fish around (being careful not to get it wet!) in the cornmeal and then put it on a tray. Repeat until all the fish is breaded.

Heat enough oil that the fish pieces can float freely in a high-sided frying pan or dutch oven to 350°F. Add a few pieces of fish at a time to the oil. The fish pieces will float when they are done, although it might be a good idea to allow a little extra time for browning. Remove the fish from the oil with tongs or a slotted spoon on to paper towels and proceed with frying the rest of the fish.

Sour Cream Sauce:

The idea here was kind of to make a Mexican-style tartar sauce but I pretty quickly started just throwing the things I had from the farmers’ market into some sour cream.

• Kernels from one ear of corn, uncooked
• Roma tomato, diced
• Jalapeño, minced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press
• 1/3 c sour cream
• Milk
• Salt

Mix together the first five ingredients, then use milk to thin the sauce to the consistency you like. For whatever reason, I like thin sour cream (perhaps it mixes better with the other taco ingredients instead of sitting aloof in a pile on top). Add salt until you can taste everything.

This is a perfect place to use any pickled cabbage you have sitting around.

Serve with warm corn tortillas.