Processing spaghetti squash

Last fall, if you remember, we had a bumper crop of spaghetti squash.

With this much abundance, we were tasked with how best to store the sheer volume.

In the end, we divvied up the ripe squash from the unripe, then stored the ripe squash in the well house.

The unripe squash was stacked in crates in the library, where it slowly ripened over a period of two months or so. As it ripened, we stored it in a cool room off our porch.

Aside from handing squash out like candy to neighbors, periodically we also brought crates of the stuff to church with a "free" sign on it.

Still, we were left with dozens of squash. And now, in February, they were reaching the tail-end of their natural storage life. It was time to get them processed or we'd lose them.

So I took about three days and got everything done. I started by splitting each squash lengthwise.

After splitting, I laid them on cookie sheets. I could fit eight (sixteen halves) into the oven at once.

The best – the very best – tool I've found to scoop out the seeds and guts is a humble ice-cream scoop. It's tough, with just enough sharpness that I can rip things out cleanly. (The black spot in the center of the scoop is just a worn part of the metal.)

Lots of pulp.

Here's the first batch, all de-pulped (gutted? scooped?).

The next step is to brush all cut surfaces with oil or melted butter. I used olive oil.

Then I flipped all the squash halves cut-side down on the pans...

...and put them in the oven at 400F for about an hour.

When they were finished baking, I let them cool for about half an hour (cool enough to handle). Then out came the faithful ice-cream scoop again, and I started scraping out the strands.

For me, this is the perfect degree of "doneness." Just the slightest bit burned, which adds a sweetness to the final product. Plus everything is easy to scoop out of the rind. Not every squash came out this well, of course.

The rinds piled up in the sink (these later went onto the compost pile).

This is eight squashes' worth of "spaghetti."

My goal was to freeze the strands. Before doing this, though, an important step is to let the strands drain overnight. Not doing this step means the frozen squash strands will be mushy after they're defrosted. So I scooped them all into my largest colander, then put the colander into a bowl.

I covered the whole thing with a plastic "shower cap" and put it into the cool room for the night.

This is how much liquid drained by morning. Other batches had even more liquid.

While another batch baked in the oven, I portioned out the drained strands into two-cup increments into Ziploc bags.

Here is a processed batch (bagged up), with another bowl full of strands ready to drain overnight.

As I bagged them, I squeezed out the air and flattened the bags, then stacked them on a cookie sheet, which I then put in the freezer overnight.

I sliced, baked, scooped, drained, and bagged for three days.  The very last one I processed was this Big Boy.

It was so big that it took up an entire cookie sheet by itself (another Big Boy, though slightly smaller, also required its own pan).

These big ones also had to bake for an extra 30 minutes due to their sheer size.

In the end, I had (I think) 34 bags of squash. In the photo below, everything is frozen except the newly bagged stuff stacked on the cookie sheet.

At this point I think it's understandable that I don't want to see another spaghetti squash for quite some time.

My latest book is available!

My latest book, "The Amish Baker's Redemption," is now available.

This is the sequel to "An Amish Marriage Agreement" which hit the New York Times' best-seller list in September. I've always felt "The Amish Baker's Redemption" was the better story of the two, so it's my hope readers agree.

Here's the backcover blurb:

Forgiveness is the missing ingredient for her fresh start. After spending years in the 'Englisch' world, Adele Bontrager returns to her Amish community, desperate to redeem herself and reclaim her faith. Working in an Amish bakery, she feels like her life is finally moving in the right direction…until Isaiah King arrives as the new head baker.

Single father Isaiah has his hands full trying to raise his rebellious teenage daughter and is grateful when Adele strikes up a friendship with his sullen child, despite her obvious reluctance toward him. But when he learns of the quiet baker’s troubled history, he’ll need to decide if her past is worth risking their future…

The book is available through Amazon (affiliate link) and Harlequin.

I hope you enjoy it! And let's hope it hits best-sellerdom again!

Elk in abundance

Don stepped onto the deck a couple days ago, then immediately poked his head back inside and said, "Grab your camera." Whenever he says that, I know it's something good. I grabbed my camera and this is what I saw.

Elk. Lots of elk. Elk in abundance.

They hung around that distant pasture all afternoon: Lounging, grazing, browsing, sunning.

Because they were moving in and out of sight, I couldn't get an exact head count, but there were at least 30.

By afternoon, pretty much the whole herd was laying in the wintery sunlight, chewing their cud.

Cool, eh?

It snowed!

Stop the presses! Alert the media! Yesterday we had snow!

Granted, not much, maybe four inches. But hey, with the exceptionally dry and freaky-warm winter we've had so far, we'll take what we can get.

The conditions were exceptionally calm and picturesque.

The one unfortunate thing about this snow was its timing. Up until this point, the most we've had was a light dusting of snow that soon melted away.

This melted-off dusting meant the ground and roads were wet. Temperatures were expected to plunge yesterday evening (as indeed they did), which meant the roads would be sheets of ice (as indeed they were). Anticipating this, we called our pastor and told him we weren't going to risk driving to the evening Ash Wednesday service, much as we wanted to attend. We're still gun-shy about driving in questionable conditions after our Christmas Day car accident over a year ago.

So we stayed home and enjoyed the snow. So did Mr. Darcy.

We went walking in our pasture yesterday evening, and Darcy romped in the white stuff like he'd never seen it before.

The evening sky looked lovely as the clouds cleared away.

By this morning, the temperature had dropped to 17F and the walkways and roads were dangerously icy. I had to watch my footing when I went out to milk the cow.

As an interesting side note, yesterday on our porch, the bird feeder (which is tied to the railing) had been knocked off overnight. Since our neighbor's cats are always hanging around, I blamed them. (Note the kitty paw prints below.)

But the snow revealed the real culprit: A raccoon.

Today is clear as a bell and very beautiful outside.

It's also warming up, and as I write this (noon-ish), snow on south-facing slopes is already melting. Sigh. It was nice while it lasted.