The winter squashes are a multifaceted group. Pumpkin is obviously perfect with sweet flavors and can be used in custards, pies, cakes, quick breads, cookies – the whole dessert (or breakfast!) spectrum. Pumpkin does take well to savory dishes, but it’s more common that you’ll see butternut squash used in dinner instead – despite their very similar flavor.
Furthermore, pumpkin in desserts is nearly always pureed. Squash in dinner is often diced, sometimes pureed. This pie, with its diced butternut squash, did not follow the rules.
My brain had some trouble deciding if this was dessert or dinner, is what I’m saying. The pears and raisins were obviously sweet, but the big chunks of squash had a strong earthy tone. I think with more sugar and smaller chunks of squash, they would blend into the other pie ingredients, and the whole thing would seem more dessert-like. It isn’t bad as it is, but, perhaps, a little confusing.
Valerie chose this for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she has the recipe posted. Instead of steaming the squash, I roasted all of the filling ingredients except the orange juice in the oven until the squash was softened, mostly because my oven was already on but also to potentially get some delicious caramelization. Because roasting drove off some liquid, I didn’t feel I needed to add the breadcrumbs to the filling.
Two years ago: Buffalo Chicken Pizza
Three years ago: Gallitos (Costa Rican Breakfast Tacos)
I’m actually looking for a recipe to use up the four pie pumpkins my MIL gave me, but I don’t want to just roast and puree them. Seems like a waste. This looks okay, but I prefer more savory dishes. Any ideas?
pam – I think you could use them in any dish that calls for butternut squash. Like I said in the post, pumpkin, even pie pumpkin, and butternut squash are mostly interchangeable. In fact, the canned “pumpkin” we buy is actually more closely related to butternut squash than what we think of as pumpkins. I have a number of recipes on my site that I like (do a word search for “squash” on my recipes page). I’m making squash macaroni and cheese for dinner tonight, and I have some squash and black bean burrito mix in the freezer.
I tend to use squashed in stews, soups or desserts. This is a great idea to use them in a pie.
I usually use butternut squash in savory dishes, but I broke out of my mold and used cut up pumpkin in a risotto last night. This pie looks interesting, I like things that kind of cross over borders.
We really like this pie. It just tastes like fall to me. I do agree that it’s weird that you mostly see pumpkin pureed even though it’s so similar to butternut squash.
This is totally tzimmes in a pie crust 🙂 And since I’ve declared that tzimmes can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert, I think that answers your question.