Travel the World with Winter Squash

Elena loves using a grocery-store staple—smoked turkey legs—to make a quick broth for the base of her three sisters soup. Be careful when adding additional salt as the smoked turkey flavor will add a lot of salt to the final dish. If using fresh corn on the cob, feel free to add the cobs to the turkey stock to build a more complex flavor.

This Korean pumpkin porridge is one of Francesca’s mom’s favorite things to make. It works well here in Wisconsin with butternut, acorn or kabocha squash (Fran’s personal favorite). Some hobakjuk recipes call for sugar, but her mom would never allow that. Francesca likes to be rebellious and add a little bit of maple syrup.

One of Jonathan’s passions at La Cosecha is educating people about simple, traditional Mexican cooking techniques. That was the inspiration for his mole amarillo made with hard-skinned winter squash, chiles, seeds, nuts and spices. He uses it here with shredded chicken, cheese and tortillas to make enchiladas, but it could just as easily be served with rice, eggs or grilled meats. Guajillo chilies should be easy to find at any Mexican grocery store, or the chilhuacle amarillo chiles (Jonathan’s preferred chiles) can be ordered online from a specialty store.e of the oils and add toasted pepitas to garnish.

If making pasta from scratch is your thing, there’s no better teacher or enthusiast than Italian-born chef and owner of Bar Corallini, Giovanni Novella. This recipe for homemade pasta stuffed with winter squash and ricotta is a bit of a project, but utterly delicious with an herbed brown butter sauce and a pile of freshly grated Parmesan. If you’d prefer to skip making the pasta dough from scratch, you can special order fresh lasagna sheets from Alimentari in Madison to use for this recipe.

This recipe comes straight off the menu of Maybe Lately’s: a breakfast and lunch restaurant serving up delicious comfort food on Main Street in Viroqua. Jessica loves the simple but huge flavor of this roasted squash that borrows from the flavor profiles of Filipino cuisine. She uses it as the base of the restaurant’s beloved squash melt which comes served on buttered and grilled housemade sourdough with braised collard greens, cheddar cheese, an herby salsa and crunchy fried shallots.