Stuff It

This is the season of comfort food. You know the kind—stick to your ribs, heat up the house with the oven, make the whole place smell good, and have leftovers kind of meals. We’re also entering the season of Carnival/Mardi Gras in which we go over the top with our cooking. It’s one thing to stuff a plastic baby in a King Cake or cream and jelly in a doughnut, but there’s only so much of those sugar-egg-flour-butter bombs one can eat.

I hear the same lament each year from winter market luddites—What do I cook? This year my answer is stuff it! While some might take offense to this, hear me out.

The market is packed with fresh goodies for stuffing. I’ll start with the obvious—winter squash. Most of the veggie vendors have them. They’re the cute little pumpkiny looking things, a few look like an overgrown orange zucchini, but aren’t too terribly big.  The ones that look like green flying saucers are my favorite and the sweetest. They’re the ones perfect for families or for someone who wants a microwave lunch at the office in the following days. Most of the work is done for you when it comes to stuffing these winter standards because they’re hollow where the seeds are. {Note to newbies: even though the seeds are edible, it’s better to remove them and toast them separately}

Once the seeds are removed, simply put the squash on a baking sheet or in those ubiquitous Pyrex baking dishes given to you by your mother when you went to college.  If you don’t have either, just wrap the whole thing in heavy-duty foil and hope it doesn’t leak.  Throw it in the oven until it smells good, a knife runs through the squash flesh, and whatever you stuffed it with is thoroughly cooked.  Don’t ask for time & temperature from me. I cook everything low and slow, especially this time of year, so if I get caught up in winter farm chores requiring more time my dinner doesn’t burn.

This dish can go either omnivorous or veg only. I even opt for the meatless version from time to time if the stuffing is particularly satisfying. Anything and everything can be used to stuff winter squash—rice, couscous, cornbread, quinoa, and mushrooms, to name a few.  

Speaking of mushrooms, check out those nice portobellos. Yes, they can double as a meatless burger, but for our pescatarian pals (and everyone else for that matter), let’s stuff them with crab or lobster. How could anyone who lived through the 70’s not love mushrooms stuffed with crabmeat appetizers.  Don’t want to eat crustaceans? Try stuffing smaller caps with cheese and roasting. Add a dab of pesto. You get the idea.

Although I have yet to try it, I saw where a head of cabbage was hollowed and stuffed with mashed potatoes and cheese, and then wrapped in dough. I think it was called a party perogi. If you’re not that adventurous, just stuff the mashed potatoes and cheese back into the potato skin and call it good. Call it great if you use sweet potatoes.  Call it awesome if you pipe them with a pastry bag and a fancy tip.

While apples are technically fruit, they too, make bakeable receptacles for both savory and sweet courses. Custard-filled or stuffed with sausage, apples do it all.  Extra points if you brulée the custard. Would that make it a candied apple, too? Hey, Valentine’s Day is coming. What a sweet idea.

There are so many different ingredients and endless ideas with ingredients found at the winter market. Even better, what’s in season right now are all good keepers so if weather gets the best of us that week, all will be well until the next week.