We have enacted new austerity measures in order to sock away enough money for a down payment on a house, and those measures include trying to eat all the already-paid-for vegetables in the CSA box each week for dinner, rather than eating dinners out.

I never know what to do with those winter squash we get from the CSA. Do we eat them? Are they decorative gourds? Should I put them in a papier mâché cornucopia and decorate the mantel with them? Dry one out and make it into a rattle? Mostly they sit on my counter glaring at me. I glare back. But tonight I came home armed with a recipe. “I am going to eat you, gourd,” I warned. And we did. One delicata squash, roasted and tossed into a green salad with goat cheese, toasted walnuts and parsley vinaigrette. It was nothing to get excited about, but still, there is one less gourd occupying my countertop, so I consider the meal a success.