Remember Those Big Odd Squashes I Grew? I Cooked One Up. Here's What It Was Like

Last spring I planted some seeds that I'd saved from a previous garden, not knowing what would grow. When these squashes first began appearing in my pumpkin patch, they looked a bit like oversized Delicata squash. A few years ago I grew both Delicata squash and Howden pumpkins. They must've crossed in one of the squashes or pumpkins that I harvested that year. And then this year they gave me their cross-pollinated babies.

I have 3 of these squash in total. Each is about 10 inches long and about 6 or 7 inches in diameter at the widest point.

When cut it open I could see they're not super dark orange and not nearly as stringy as a pumpkin. But they do look a little pale, don't they?

You can kind of see that there are not a lot of strings inside as you might find in pumpkins. The way the flesh felt when cutting it made it seem somewhat heavy in water.

I scooped out both halves and discovered a lot of seeds. At this point, I'm still wondering how this will taste.

After baking, the flesh looks somewhat watery. Before this photo I spooned out a few tablespoons of juice and set aside. I could have baked the squash longer, but it was getting close to dinner time.

I scooped out enough cooked squash for the evening's meal. As far as taste goes, it was bland. The texture was okay, though. Not smooth and buttery like a butternut squash, more like that of cooked pumpkin. I doctored up the flavor with nutmeg, cinnamon, butter, salt, and leftover pancake syrup. My family seemed to like it a lot. But I think that was all of the "doctoring" I did that they were responding to.

I have a little more than half leftover from this first squash. I think I'll turn it into a soup for tomorrow night's dinner.

It's not the best squash I've ever had, not even in the top 50%. But it is food, I don't like to waste, and I'm grateful to have plenty. I can turn the other 2 of these guys into something delicious, I'm sure of that.

What would you do with squash that was bland and on the watery side?