Chestnuts, I’ve come to learn, are regarded more as a vegetable than actual nut. Once they’re roasted — like the one you see here — they take on a dense, almost squash-like taste, a flavor that seems to lend itself wonderfully to soups or purees.

I was a little intimidated at the thought of having to shell 500 of these things.  But a friend told me that the secret to shelling chestnuts is similar to skinning peaches and tomatoes in preparation for canning.  Using a sharp paring knife, I was told to carve an X into the flat side of each shell.  This is somewhat of a daunting task, but Jake was nice enough to do it for me. He seems to have the patience for this type of work, and I think kind of enjoys it.

After he had carved all the nuts, I spread them in a single layer on a baking sheet — ideally X side up but I wasn’t exactly vigilant about this step — and baked them in a 425 degree oven for 35 minutes.  I’d never actually eaten a roasted chestnut before last night.

Roasting them not only cooked the nuts (two cups of which I plan to use in tonight’s chestnut risotto with butternut squash), but the heat caused the shells to buckle away from the nut itself, so removing the shells after they’d had a chance to cool for a bit was simple enough. This morning, I gave the leftover shells to the chickens since eating sharp, dense objects such as pebbles and sand aids in their digestion.

This may sound insane, but I’m actually kind of sad about tonight’s dinner. Butternut squash (and the surprise chestnut harvest) is among the last of my 2009 garden haul, so tonight’s dinner will be somewhat of a season finale.