Autumn Frost Winter Squash

Autumn Frost winter squash
Autumn Frost winter squash

This year, I grew something new: Autumn Frost winter squash. I’m very impressed with it. It’s essentially a mini butternut squash. Since I’m just cooking for the two of us, I was attracted to the idea of a more manageable size squash. In the past, I’ve cooked some whopper butternuts so this was a nice change.

I got the ‘Autumn Frost’ seeds from High Mowing Organic Seeds. It takes an average of 100 days for the plants to produce mature fruits. ‘Honeynut’ squash is a similar cultivar that became available this year. The latter really appealed to me but there was a problem. I was concerned that 110 days to maturity would be pushing it for my zone 5b garden. But if you are interested in that one, it’s also available at High Mowing.

Roasting the winter squash

Bill and I recently made a new recipe for stuffed Honeynut squash that I spotted on Instagram a while back. The stuffing calls for Andouille sausage (I substituted Field Roast sausage, which is a tasty vegetarian version). There are also apples and cranberries, which really appealed to me. The recipe is from Garden in the Kitchen and it’s called Sausage and Apple Stuffed Honeynut Squash.

Autumn Frost squash

While the petite size of my ‘Autumn Frost’ squash was perfect for this recipe, I ran into one problem. Just in case you’re thinking about making this recipe, too, I wanted to let you know. It calls for splitting the squash in half lengthwise. Then roast them in a 400-degree F. oven for 30 minutes, uncovered. At that point, you add the stuffing and serve them (no additional baking time).

Unfortunately, roasting winter squash uncovered for 30 minutes will NOT completely cook the squash. We ended up increasing the time to 1 hour but it still didn’t thoroughly cook the squash. This means there are 2 options:

  1. Cover the squash during the roasting time. This should hasten the cooking although you’ll probably need to increase the time as well.
  2. OR, you can cut an uncooked squash into cubes and bake all of the ingredients together as a casserole. We did that last time, and it worked great. However, this time, I had wanted to try it according to the directions and that’s where we ran into trouble.

The bottom line: all of the ingredients are delicious. It’s a great recipe except for the short baking time and lack of a cover over the squash. For example, putting a lid or foil over the baking dish. We will definitely make it again because it’s a great fall dish, but will make those adjustments!