Have you ever seen a squash like this before? Its variety is commonly known as a banana squash. Believe it or not, this as the smallest of the banana squash when I was at the produce stand a month ago. I paid 33 cents per pound, which I think is a pretty good price for fresh veggies these days. I'm going to hack into it today, so I wanted to show it to you while I could. While this one is a pink banana squash, there are also blue-green and all-white varieties.
Banana squash are hard-skinned, so are considered to be long-keepers. As you may have noticed, it's not the most attractive of the squashes. Perhaps that explains why you just don't see these in markets much these days. The squash that seem to populate the produce bins in autumn in my grocery stores are all the thinner-skinned and much more attractive squash. Those also happen to be the short-keepers.
This one is almost 2 feet in length and weighs about 8 pounds. I believe that I'll be able to get about 5 family meals out of this one squash. Once the squash is cut, any unused/uncooked portion will keep in the refrigerator for up to 10 days.
I could have kept this longer. However, I needed some vegetables for our dinners this week and this one was taking up a large share of the food storage space. While I said banana squash is hard-skinned, the shell is not as difficult to cut as Hubbard squash, if you're familiar with that variety. I was able to cut this one into 8-inch chunks, using my serrated bread knife. Its interior flesh is deep-orange and about 1 1/4 inches thick all around.
You may have bought banana squash from the produce department of your market at some point. Markets used to regularly sell 4 to 6-inch cut chunks of banana squash which were over-wrapped in plastic wrap. Back when I was single and living on my own, cut pieces of banana squash were the cheapest fresh vegetable in the produce department. As I had very little money in those days, I ate quite a lot of this variety of squash.
Banana squash are sweet and mild-flavored. I'll be using this one in soup, oven-roasted in chunks, and baked and mashed.
