The Smallest Full Moon and Baked Banana? Squash

I let Pogo out last night for his final runabout of the evening and the glow of the full moon immediately captured my attention.  I ran inside to get my camera and stood in the cold snapping away.  I later discovered this is the smallest full moon of the year (because it's at it's farthest point away from the earth) and you can still see it tonight (Thursday), which I highly recommend (you will also see Jupiter just above it).

One of the things I love about the bare trees in winter is I can see the moon wherever it is in the sky...

...when the trees are full and green, the lushness blocks my view unless the moon is in a select few spots around our cabin.  I stood gazing and clicking away for quite some time, enjoying the clouds passing by and the chill in the air...right place, right time!

Now squash has nothing to do with the moon, but I did finish yesterday's preserving project, and wanted to let you know that I believe that long, whitish squash is a banana squash (after a little research, this is my best guess of what it is).  It smelled just like a sweet, ripe cantaloupe, but the flavor of the puree was very mild with a rich orange color (even compared to the pumpkin).  I pureed 3 1/2 cups, and saved another 4 cups of cubed with the skin on for baking.

I lightly coated the cubes with olive oil, salt, pepper, ground nutmeg and a little bit of real maple syrup and baked, skin side down, in a 350F degree oven until they were very tender, about 45 minutes (this is the same amount of time I baked the squash for pureeing but those pieces were much larger), and then for 2 minutes under broil to crisp the top slightly.  I sprinkled julienned pineapple sage leaves to serve, which gave a little bright crispness to the smooth texture of the squash.

Looks pretty, but when scooping it off the skin, the flesh was a little bitter and I noticed two layers to the flesh, the inner which was orange and then the layer nearest the skin which was whiter...that's the part that made it bitter.  So we cut the inner layer off and enjoyed that quite a bit, though we did decide we weren't planting those seeds...live and learn, right?

Have you ever experimented with cooking something and decide you wouldn't do that again?

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise