Kitchen Garden Forum

For a couple of weeks we've had a funny smell developing in our garage which I was very fearful was coming from yet another mouse nest somewhere. On returning home this morning from four days away, we were gearing ourselves up to have to do another garage clearance tomorrow to try and track it down.
Then my OH decided it was about time we checked out our last uneaten Crown Prince from last autumn which was resting in a plastic tray to see whether it was too dried out for try roasting some of it for lunch. As he picked it up the damned thing exploded in his face emitting the foulest smell ever and drenching him in unspeakable smelling liquid.
Another mystery solved and at least we won't have to clear out the garage!

The funny thing is that the outer skin still looked a nice shiny blue/green colour when I checked it a few days ago. The volcano was obviously simmering underneath and inside and building up to a nice inferno. Reminded me rather of reports of what happened to Henry 8th's corpse after he died

Have you let him back into the house yet, Primrose?

Yes, but the washing machine is working overtime ! And as he's just made amends by making five pints of tomato soup from tomatoes which ripened while we were away, I can hardly complain.

I'm wondering now what the longest time is that anybody has overwintered some squash and still found it edible? Much as we love Crown Prince, we do find that with only two of us much of the time in the house, we just can't eat our way through a large squash of this size quickly enough to enjoy it in good condition, so will settle more for the little Sweet Dumplings in future, I think. What do others of you do to keep them fresh when you've got these bigger squashes to eat your way through?

Hi Primrose, you did well to keep a squash like that almost a year! We generally end up with a few that make it into the following spring, but of those there are often one or two that are starting to ferment or generally go off.

Hopefully you have some more Crown Prince awaiting harvest this autumn?

In the meantime, yes it's hard to let most of the larger varieties grow & ripen to maturity without them ending up being larger than you need for a normal meal. Our answer to that was to freeze the remaining part......and sadly my wife has just had to throw out the last uneaten batch of our 2009 harvest whilst defrosting the freezer

oooh your poor O.H how awful for him,but what a great picture for all of us .Soup,is what we make and freeze it.
Did Henry viii really explode,please tell more.

Primrose wrote:....I'm wondering now what the longest time is that anybody has overwintered some squash and still found it edible? Much as we love Crown Prince, we do find that with only two of us much of the time in the house, we just can't eat our way through a large squash of this size quickly enough to enjoy it in good condition, so will settle more for the little Sweet Dumplings in future, I think. What do others of you do to keep them fresh when you've got these bigger squashes to eat your way through?

Crown Prince, the October of the year following harvest.

I bake CP, cutting a plug round the stem, levering that plug out, remove & discard the seeds, re-insert the plug (minus stem) and bake upside down, so that liqued does not build up in the bottom of the hole and prevent it steaming nicely. We then quarter the cooked beast, scrape all the edible flesh from the skin and eat an amount with Sunday roast, the rest is cooled and refridgerated to be added to any & every sauce based dish for a week or more, alternatively I make squash and bacon soup with the whole of the remainders.

PS I have a 17 year old who exercies a lot and eats in balance with it.

PS I have a 17 year old who exercises a lot and eats in balance with it

So that's how you make them keep!

Geoff wrote:PS I have a 17 year old who exercises a lot and eats in balance with it

So that's how you make them keep!

Groooannn!

Son not squash.