Warm roasted sugar pie pumpkin filled with salad.

I have been on a big winter squash binge the last couple weeks. I think it’s David’s least favorite food, so I have been roasting them up, halved, and eating them for lunch. I’ve gone through a few acorn squashes, a few butternuts and delicatas, but at the farmers market last Wednesday (Civic Center, SF) they had sugar pie pumpkins for a buck each, so here’s one of those.

The hot and cold thing started when I had some curtido (vinegary Salvadoran slaw) leftover (From the Alemany Farmers market) and was looking for something to stick inside my squash-hole after roasting up a butternut one day. It was so tasty! The almost pickley slaw, cold and crunchy, mixed with the hot roasted squash. After that, I went actively filling my squash-holes with salad.

The one above is arugula and red butter lettuce dressed with olive oil and red wine vinegar. There’s a shallot in it, which I let sit in the vinegar a few minutes before I tossed the oiled greens into the bowl. I used a carrot peeler to shave some comte into it. I had planned to use parm, but alas, the parm larder was bare.

After my first few hot-cold squash dishes, I went to Serpentine (a great restaurant in Dogpatch) and saw a salad that was maple-cooked pumpkin with arugula, pumpkin seeds and ricotta salata. In their version, the pumpkin (actually kabocha, I think) was served warm under the bed of greens with the ricotta salata microplaned into a fluffy topping. It was one of the best salads I’ve had in a restaurant ever. The squash was not overly mapley, just a hint of sweetness.

Anyway, go forth and fill your hot squash-hole with cold stuff.