Clements Kitchen Chronicles: Frankensquash Meets Risotto

This could also be titled, Frankensquash: A Garden Lesson

The garden brought us many lessons this year. One being, we really have very little control over the end harvest. Some years the weather decides to not participate in the group project and humility is dosed out overnight. Rude, weather. However my big take away this year is how severely The Secret Garden lied. I’m talking about the 1993 movie depiction of Mary Lennox just willy-nilly tossing seeds around and four glorious months later, bulb flowers are blooming. I take issue with this carefree depiction of gardening, it is not real. Also seeds and bulbs are not the same, can we make that a declarative truth?

Here’s the thing, Lucas is a plotter and planner when it comes to gardening. Which is how it should be. I took the Mary Lennox approach in my herb and flower beds and woof did that fail. Lucas’ methodology is rooted in many books and research and from said exposure he discovered the Three Sisters, four if you add sunflowers. Three Sisters was an ingenious planting practice by Native Americans where they would use a smaller area of land to grow three mainstay crops: corn, squash and beans. The corn would be planted in a pattern towards the center, as the stalks grew, the maturing beans would climb around the stalks. Meanwhile the squash and pumpkin spread and grow at the base of the stalks attracting pollinators. Some plants like corn and squash are high nitrogen feeders, while others like beans provide nitrogen to the soil. By planting the crops together it creates biodiversity in the soil, enriching not stripping the soil of nutrients. I know, brilliant.

We were pumped to see how it would take. We’ve become close with the owners of our local nursery in Des Moines and they did warn us the method is most successful for crops that have had time to dry. The method was developed so the crops would dry out and then be harvested for winter storage. Again, brilliant. However we weren’t looking to mill corn and beans so we knew our experiment would be just that, an experiment. 

One of the Frankensquash that crept into our raised bed cage and used the cover as it’s base.

Welp. The beans were overly aggressive and tackled our already meek and shy corn to the ground. We managed to get a couple ears but because of the extended and excessively wet spring, they had a hard time maturing. But here lies the biggest lesson of all. Lucas threw caution to the wind and joined my Mary Lennox, laissez-faire method when planting the squash. We planted three different squash species in the same plot. Also two volunteer pumpkins started to bud from a decomposed carving pumpkin we had from last year which had been tossed into the compost. So technically four squash species in one area, that’s brazen gardening math right there.

Our miscalculation led us to our new garden creation: Frankensquash. The volunteer seeds from the carving pumpkin along with some acorn squash seeds took off and quickly grew vines that developed buds, which unfurled blooms. Those blooms were pollinated by bees (thanks dudes) which then became cross pollinated as the bees traveled from species to species. (Yup, we are talking about the birds and bees of pumpkins right now.) We essentially created a mutant squash, not just one but three.

So what does one do with a mutant vegetable?

You eat it. And I decided the safest course was to try it in a risotto (YOLO). 

Actually I had the ingredients for it. We still have leeks and herbs from our garden and the pantry had the required arborio rice and chicken stock. So risotto it was! (We refer to risotto sometimes as grown up mac-n-cheese, we ain’t wrong.)

Processing the squash was comical. Frankensquash needed a proper carving knife which I didn’t have on hand. Also it didn’t help that I decided to try a new recipe this time around. Between the toughness of the Frankensquash’s skin and having NO clue where the recipe was taking me, dinner prep felt a little unhinged.

I would never in a million years think to use the innards of a squash/pumpkin as a key source of flavor. And yet, I obeyed and allowed the goop to marinate in the chicken stock and you know what I learned? Trust the author of a recipe.

After a solid arm workout and a new blister on my finger, the ingredients were prepped and I could begin the slow, methodical process of making risotto. Both boys were now up from their naps, so I inherited some kitchen helpers. Hudson is very interested in stirring and pouring which frankly is perfect for this recipe. That’s all you do, for thirty minutes. He would occasionally get board and terrorize, rather chase, Jack around the kitchen. Jack helps me by pulling out every pot, skillet, lid and bowl I own and creating an obstacle course throughout the kitchen. It’s fabulous.

After much singing, occasional dancing, some stirring and a few pre-dinner snacks the Frankensquash Risotto was complete and you know what? It wasn’t bad! I have made butternut and pumpkin risottos before and their flavors carried through making it much richer. Because we essentially took the flavor of an acorn squash and stretched it in the body of a pumpkin, the flavors were incredibly muted. After all that work of steeping the seeds, fiber and cubed squash out of the stock, you couldn’t really taste the squash. However the grated squash did add a lovely flavor and texture to the rice and parmesan, so it felt like half a win. 

This recipe is from a book of mine that I could share but I’ve added a link below for a more straight forward recipe because why not, let’s keep it simple. In fact, I think I will revisit risotto making later this month but I will use my coveted pumpkin puree based risotto recipe, more on that later!

Moral to the story, don’t let Mary Lennox fool you friends.