Recipe - Elsies Yellow (Elbow - Some Call It Crookneck) Squash

About 10 squash pick the
smaller squash; (more
flavor in the "young")
Onions
Butter
Cream
Salt and LOTS of
freshlyground pepper
1 pn Sugar

Clean the squash, trim the ends, slice the squash in half, lengthwise, then
chop in crosswise. Set aside.

Chop a couple of onions up. We love it "oniony," so I use big ones. Set
aside.

Melt 8 oz. BUTTER in a dutch kettle. Add the chopped onions and saute for
about 34 minutes. Dump in the squash. Salt and pepper it. Put a top on the
kettle, and reduce heat to simmer. Simmer for about an hour or until the
squash is very tender. Stir occasionally during the cooking period. Then
mash it up with a masher (as I've discussed before, I prefer the potato
ricer masher the one that's round with the holes in it. I just think it
does a much better job than the squiggly one). Add a pinch of sugar. Taste.
If it needs more salt and pepper, add it. Let it simmer about 15 more
minutes, then add *just* enough cream to bind it together (you do not have
to add cream at all, it just makes it a little more special).

Naturally, as with all vegetables, the success of this dish lies directly
in how flavorful the squash themselves are. If you get good ones, and cook
'em up like this, it's a very long way from the bland, waterlogged way too
many people cook vegetables. Veggies such as all squash, mushrooms, etc.,
which have a great deal of their own water content, should never, ever be
cooked in water. The heat brings out their own water, which is sufficient.

Posted to TNT Recipes Digest by Patricia McGibbonyMangum
pmangum@primenet.com on May 10, 1998