Accorn Squash

This year was the first time I grew accorn squash & they were very prolific & my DH wrapped them in newspaper & put them in the basement, where it is cool. I just went down & got one for supper tonight & it has turned an orangish color. Is this normal? I've never seen them orange in the stores, but maybe they don't store good. Anyone know much about accorn squash?
TIA,
Jan

jan - this is from the joy of coking cookbook

acorn squash are a deeply ridged acorn shape, in black, dark green, or orange. their flesh is yellow to orange, moderately sweet but relatively bland. orange acorns often are sweetest and have the best flavor..
perhaps you bought the orange type such as ambercup. wish i could help you more, but if you want a great recipe for the acorn squash (baked acorn squash with pear and applie) let me know on this forum as my e-mail is not working at the moment,
frank

Actually all the dark green acorn squash that I have ever grown turn orange in storage. It is quite normal but acorn are not the best keeping squash. keep an eye open for soft spots.

Thanks, I had to throw 3 of them out that were soft, but still have 1 1/2 bushel baskets full of them. I planted 2 hills of them & I think all the seeds (3 in @ hill) germinated. All the rest are hard, but are turning orange. I guess we had better get busy & eat them. :) If the one we have tonight is good, perhaps I should think about giving some of them away.

ahhh, if you've never had acorn squash before, you're in for a treat. My favorite.

Congratulations! The squash vine borer always gets to most of my squash and pumpkins. I've started burying several nodes along the pumpkin vines and they root and take over if the main stem gets violated.

Did someone recommend that they be wrapped in paper for some reason? That would only be holding in any moisture, causing them to rot faster. By the way, did ya'll allow them to "sun cure" for a bit before storing them?

I'd be more inclined to keep them coolish (50º) but with air flow around them, unwrapped and laid out singly on a shelf if possible. If they were picked at maturity, then properly cured you should be eating them for many months! Yummy!

That's the way I've always done them, 'Shoe, and they keep a long time. Of course mine are always store-bought, thanks to the squash borer in my garden.

I usually put powdered sevin at the base of the stems starting in late June/early July to deter the squash bugs. I'm always careful not to get the powder up around the eatable parts. I also do that with the zuchini.

Putting newspaper around them is the way we store any tomatos that aren't picked before the frost gets the plants.

I've always just laid the squash out in a single layer with no wrapping also....they keep for months. Never wrapped tomatoes either.Just didn't let anthing touch each other.

People started wrapping tomatoes in paper cus it held in the ethylene gas, causing ripening faster. I quit that cus you always had to unwrap each one to inspect it; at some point I just put my maters in a dresser drawer and laid a sheet of newspaper over them. It was much easier to just lift the paper and observe that way.

Now, on the rare occasion I save many tomatoes I do as Mel, just lay them out and leave them alone.

Shoe, thanks for that tip, I just might try that next year. Sure will save a lot of time.
Hope everyone has a Very Merry Christmas.
Jan

I know this is an older thread but have you thought about blanching them and freezing them? I'm gonna try to plant Table Queen Acorn Squash. What variety did you plant last season? Sounds like it did wonderful.
-Juli

I don't remember the name. Not sure if I saved the pkg or not. I can't remember if I planted all the seeds or not. I did have lots of squash though.

I've baked & pureed pumpkin and then frozen it for use in pies, etc, so I imagine acorn squash could be frozen too.

I know I've seen it in the freezer section at the grocery store before.
-Juli