After several days with highs in the low 80s, yesterday brought cooler temperatures, and it was 32F when we got up this morning. We are supposed to have freezing temperatures tonight and tomorrow. That calls for a winter meal, so on Monday I made my Pork Loin Roast with Barley, Butternut Squash, and Kale. I had been wanting to make this meal for the last few weeks, using a roast that I bought a couple of months ago from the meat vendor at our farmers' market. However, I had to wait until last week when we did our shopping trip to the next town to get the kale, then I had to wait for cold weather, which I knew would be back.
I had one last very large squash that came from our garden last fall just before the freeze. It was from the seed that was in with the honey nut squashes but clearly did not belong there, as these squashes had large leaves and produced large fruit. This one was 15-inches long, mostly with a bulb at the bottom and long neck. It had not fully ripened when my husband picked it before the frost, but it sat on the enclosed sun porch and finished up nicely. Its taste is excellent. My husband decided to save some seed from it and will plant one, just to see if we can get an equivalent batch of large squashes. Of course, this seed would have hybridized with the honey nuts.
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