Plan Your Fall Party Around These Autumn Dishes

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

There is a pumpkin shortage this year in the Northeast. Hurricane Irene may not have caused quite the havoc to metropolitan areas that was originally predicted, but much of the rich farmlands of New Jersey, upstate New York, Vermont and elsewhere in the New England were affected. Among the flood victims: Halloween’s emblematic vegetable, the pumpkin.

There are still some pumpkins out there, just maybe not as many as before. Perhaps where a pumpkin carving party might previously have meant a couple of pumpkins per guest, this year perhaps people will have to work in teams to design and execute a masterful, frightening creation in squash.

When it comes to cooking up pumpkin, options may be limited as well. Overgrown carving pumpkins were never meant for eating but their diminutive cousins, sugar pumpkins, were always ideal for seasonal creations in soup, ravioli filling, and roasted vegetable side dishes.

Luckily there are several squashes that make a fine substitute for pumpkins. Kabocha, butternut, and acorn--each of these can stand in for pumpkin in a pinch. The color and texture of these winter squashes are similar but each still lends a unique taste to some classic and new ideas for cooking with pumpkin.

Chief among fall’s signature seasonal dishes is the winter squash soup. Pumpkin soup may be pretty to serve using a hollowed out squash as a bowl, but there are others that will do the same trick with only slightly different taste. Acorn squash is the natural substitute here. The color is lighter and the taste is a little more citrusy. But the switch will give you the smoother texture of the naturally smaller acorn squash. Not to mention the fact that the dark green, ribbed exterior makes for dramatic service when the soup is dished up in the squash shell.

Pumpkin and butternut squash filled ravioli is another favorite autumnal dish that signals shorter days and cooling temps. If either of those are running low in the local market, kabocha squash is a substitute that will win over guests for being a tastier version of what they are used too. Kabocha has denser flesh with a sweeter, more intense flavor than butternut or pumpkin. The result is highly concentrated ravioli filling that bursts in the mouth with sweet squash goodness.

For a smaller, more austere pumpkin carving party this year, I am thinking about a big batch of pumpkin, chicken, and white bean chili. It is the sort of quickly simmered stew that will work on the fly with whichever of fall’s winter squashes happen to be in supply. Pumpkin would be best, of course, but butternut, acorn, or kabocha would all be tasty substitutes. Big bowls of brimming with cubes of orange winter squash, delicate white beans and savory chicken will fill up bellies and sustain one's creativity for a session of scooping out seeds and carving up some goulish creations. Sweet and savory, hearty but light, even if pumpkins are in short supply, the vast array of fall squashes have the ability to pack in a lot of flavor whatever the dish.

Serves/Makes: 6

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 pound ground chicken
• 1/2 medium onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 3/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 large butternut squash (or pumpkin or kabocha)
• 1 can (15 ounce size) cannellini beans
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 8 sage leaves
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon butter