Tale of the Hairy Gourd

Doesn't that sound like a horror story? This is actually a happy story but unfortunately includes that gross name.
I might have mentioned at some point that our garden neighbor's plants have been growing like crazy over our fence. He wrote a nice apologetic email and said that we could either cut back the vines or keep anything that grew on our side. We decided to keep the vines around and see what they produced.

It produced this:

Having no clue what it was, we decided to let it grow. And grow it did...

It grew to this:

And then to this:

It weighed about 20 lbs and we had no clue what it was. After a lot of google searching, we learned this mysterious Asian vegetable goes by many names: moa qua, mo gua, hairy gourd, fuzzy gourd, winter melon, fuzzy cucumber...who the F knows.

We decided to go to to Whole Foods and buy some ingredients to stiry fry it up with.

Peppers sizzlin'

Squid cooking up

Mise en place (top chef joke)

Oodles of noodles

More veggies (the greenish white squares are the hairy gourd chopped up)

Bay Scallops cooking in butter

The final product! All mixed together.

This was an awesome dinner and everything came out really well. Unfortunately my least favorite part of the stir fry was the gourd. I actually liked how it tasted raw better than cooked. Surprise surprise. Luckily we have about 18 lbs left of it and 20 more growing in the garden. Anyone want a gourd? Anyone?

So what else have I been up to since last week?

Hanging out with friends in Harvard Square [Russel House Tavern]:

Charcuterie

Oystahs

Steak tartare

Burger & fries

Free Friday Flicks at the Hatch Shell. Tom and I made a picnic and saw "The Great and Powerful Oz"...it was so fun!

Kayaking down the Charles River:

Turtles!

There's a tiny baby turtle in here somewhere

Eating seafood in Newburyport:

And really just trying to enjoy the summer as it winds down. Winter comes way too fast here in New England and I'm doing my best to keep a smile on my face!!