Rebecca’s Recipe of the Week: Squash for Lunch | Canalside Community Food

One of the wonders of the modern culinary world is the discovery that we can eat raw squash. Thin spiralised ribbons of raw courgette, butternut squash and carrot started to appear in cooking blogs some time around 2013; and now they’re everywhere. But you don’t need a spiraliser to make Canalside squash into a quick salad for lunch. Here’s how.

Squash, Avocado and Pumpkin Seed Salad
Serves 1.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon blackberry vinegar, or any other fruit vinegar, or, failing that, cider vinegar
salt and pepper, to taste
1.5 tablespoons rapeseed oil
100g raw squash
all the salad from your Canalside share
1 small, ripe avocado
a big handful of pumpkin seeds

Preparation
First prepare the dressing: in the bowl out of which you wish to eat the salad place the vinegar, salt and pepper. Slowly drizzle in the oil, whisking all the while with a fork. Taste and see if you’d like to add a little more vinegar, or oil, or seasoning. Then set aside while you prepare the salad.

Peel the squash, using a sharp knife. Then, using a vegetable peeler, shave off thin strips of squash until you’ve shaved it all, or you’re left with a piece that is too tiny to manipulate any further. Eat this tiny piece while you prepare the rest of the salad.

Put the washed salad leaves in the bowl. Top with the shaved squash ribbons. Open the avocado and scoop out the flesh. Cut it into generous chunks and add them to the salad.
Heat a small frying pan over medium-high heat (you don’t need to add any oil). Add the pumpkin seeds and toast them, stirring frequently so that they don’t burn. They will soon start of pop and jump about in the pan. As soon as they do, tip them onto the salad. Toss and eat.