Five of the Easiest and Best Ways to Cook with Summer Squashes

I normally post a recipe a week, not because I have a significant fan base or anything, but because if I don't make myself write down recipes, I forget them. Keeping in mind that I am not quite the only one reading my recipes, I try not to be too redundant, despite the fact that I tend to use the same ingredients over and over based on what's growing in my garden. 

Like any respectable California home gardener, I am now overwhelmed by a bumper crop of summer squash. 
 

A day's harvest of patty pan squash, eggplant and Roma tomatoes

A zucchini that got out of hand

I am eating squash of some kind every day, but it does seem a little annoying to post squash recipes for two months straight. So here you go, I will just throw out my five favorite and easy (but not original) ways to use up squash, with links to recipes that I've tried and liked. I emphasize the word easy because there are plenty of layered and stuffed squash recipes that are great, but they are more fussy.

Then I promise I will not post anything about squash for the rest of the summer, unless I get hit with some wild and crazy, super-original inspiration.

1.  Sliced, floured, fried and salted. Sometimes, the simple stuff is the best. Nice high heat on your olive oil ( a little smoke is no big deal) and fried squash slices with good-ol' homemade ranch on the side. It's just yum.

2. Grated up and put in a fritter. I have several of these recipes posted, I sometimes call them patties or pancakes too, but Nigella Lawson has some tasty ones here- Courgette Fritters

3. Grilled and served in a salad. Grilling adds a ridiculous amount of flavor to a vegetable that isn't super intense in flavor to begin with. Get a little char on there, and don't salt until after they're grilled. Check out My Grilled Summer Salad.

4. Mixed in with pasta sauce. This is so obvious, but it's just really tasty. The trick is not to do it too soon though. You don't want mushy zucchini and you don't want to water down the sauce. I would lightly saute the squash separately in olive oil first, then mix it up with your sauce, or pasta, at the last  minute. I like Tyler Florence's recipe for spaghetti and meatballs, you could use a smaller pasta instead of spaghetti and replace half the pasta with the squash.

5. Mix it up half and half with mashed potatoes. This works well and it's even better if you leave the skin on the potatoes and go for the chunky kind of mashed potatoes. You will want to grate or finely chop the squash and, just like with fritters, squeeze a bunch of the moisture out of the squash first. Replace about a third to a half of the potato bulk with squash and follow the mashed potato recipe of your choice.

Happy Gardening and Eating!

Fried Squash and Nasturtium Patties

I thought it would be fun to include a common flower in this recipe for my fellow gardeners out there. Nasturtiums are super easy to grow, even from seed, and you can easily find them in yellow, orange or red. 

Here in the hotter parts of California and other southern states though, be careful when you read the label, "full sun"- it doesn't really apply here. They need plenty of sun of course, but morning sun is better. All of my nasturtiums that get too much harsh afternoon sun are looking pretty haggard.

http://blog.theenduringgardener.com/november-nasturtiums/

This recipe is of course super similar to the zucchini patties that I've made before, except that this batter is more of a dough than a batter. The others are really more like zucchini pancakes, but when you stir up this batter you should have more of a thick cookie dough or meatball mix consistency. 

They're so yummy.

Ingredients:
3 small tender squashes, grated.  I used one small crookneck, 1 small patty pan and 1 small zucchini (because that's what was ready in my garden).
5-6 large fresh nasturtium leaves, chopped fine
several nasturtium flowers,petals removed
1/4 cup fresh chives, chopped fine
1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped fine
1/4 cup fresh flat parsley, chopped fine
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt (or more to taste, I didn't really measure)
1 egg
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup crumbled feta or other sharp or tangy cheese
2-4 tablespoons of olive oil for frying

After you grate up or food process your little squashes, you have to pick the pile up and squeeze out as much moisture as you can. This is very important, they taste watery and bland and don't cook right if you skip this step. Put it all in a bowl with the other ingredients. 

You really need to use wheat flour instead of regular, it absorbs more moisture and has a nice nutty flavor. After you stir it all up really well, you should have a fairly stiff sticky dough. 

In a non-stick pan, heat up about 2 tablespoons of olive oil on med-high heat. Take about a small ice cream scoop of dough (a scant 1/4 cup?) at a time and make a very flat patty with your hands and fry them in the olive oil for 3 minutes per side. Make sure they are nice and flat, in fact when you flip them you can squish them down a bit with your spatula to make sure. You should get about 8-10 of them.

Serve them garnished with your beautiful nasturtium petals, a sour cream or yogurt based sauce on top, and a nice cold glass of Sauvignon Blanc on the side.

The sauce I made was just a big glob of full-fat sour cream mixed with a splash of red wine vinegar and a half teaspoon of harissa paste. You could also use a teaspoon of sun dried tomato pesto or basil pesto mixed if harissa is too spicy.

Zucchini Patties, or Something To Do With Little Squashlings

I'll admit it, I have to spell-check "zucchini" every time I write it. We could spell it zukini, as in, "Eat more zukini to fit in a bikini." No?
Well, bikini assonance aside, I do not mean to imply that the following recipe is in any way slimming, it's just a yummy way to use up the zucchini that your over-zealous gardener neighbor gives you every year.

Ingredients:
5 small/medium zucchini (or the one giant one that was growing sneakily at the back of the garden) grated (approximately 4 cups)
1/2 cup semolina flour, or whole wheat flour (fine corn flour if you need these gluten free)
3 eggs
2 green onions, finely diced
2 tablespoons finely chopped Italian parsley
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon dried dill
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
3 ounces soft goat cheese (chevre), crumbled 
olive oil

a lemon, some Greek yogurt, and more Italian parsley to serve

Heat the olive oil in a NON-STICK pan over medium-high heat, using enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan well. (I had my stove on 9 then had to turn it down to 8 after the first batch.)  

After you've grated the zucchini into your mixing bowl, the best thing to do is grab handfuls of it at a time and squeeze the heck out of it over the sink to remove some of the moisture. Mix the grated zucchini in with all of the rest of the ingredients and then drop rounded spoonfuls of the batter into the pan carefully, smooshing them flat as you go, so they look like little pancakes. Fry them in batches, cooking for three minutes per side. Don't crowd the pan too much because you don't want them touching each other, it makes it hard to flip them over. This recipe should make at least 12-16 patties. If your batter starts to look a little runny between batches, you can add a tablespoon more of flour and mix really well before continuing.

They can go into a warm oven until serving, or you can just enjoy them at room temperature. Serve with fresh lemon squeezed over, good generous dollops of Greek yogurt or sour cream, and roughly chopped fresh parsley. 

Breakfast With Color, and I Don't Mean Fruit Loops: Eggs & Zucchini

I've been eating toast and cheese, or cereal, for breakfast during my illness, and to be honest it probably made me worse. Today I finally had a good breakfast that left me feeling light and energetic, but had lots of fresh flavor.

If you don't like eggs, just make the same thing and add more zucchini or some mushrooms- and just know that I think you're a little weird.

Ingredients:

2 green zucchini, quartered lengthwise and then sliced
1/2 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1 teaspoon savory
1/2 teaspoon (or more) garlic salt
several dashes of black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 ounce of crumbled feta, or whatever sharp cheese you have
2 good quality organic eggs
salt 

In a non-stick skillet heat your olive oil on high and add the zucchini and garlic salt. Cook for about 2 minutes then add the savory, a bit of pepper and the tomatoes. Continue to cook on high for another 3-5 minutes, depending on how much you  like your veggies cooked, making sure you stir them around once in a while. 

After the veggies are cooked, add the feta cheese evenly over the top, then crack your eggs over the top as well. Now COVER the pan with a lid or foil, and turn the heat down to low/med-low. On my stove the eggs were done to over medium-ish in four minutes, but you can lift your lid after 3 minutes and poke your yolks gently to see if they are the way you like them. This method  is kind of nice because your eggs are basically steaming, so you don't have to flip them.

Salt and pepper the eggs and serve yourself  right away, with good hot coffee of course, and if you're a bread person I would go with toasted sourdough.