Preserving Some Squash for Winter Feasts

One of our Enright CSA members, Terry Sullivan, has her own "Real Food" blog, and I heartily recommend you take a look at it for recipes and suggestions on how to turn our "real" local produce into some delicious dishes. The latest entry is titled "The Problem of Cucumbers," and you may be experiencing that problem--what to do with so many of them--with cucumbers and with squash. Of course, making pickles from cucumbers is always a good way to preserve your excess produce, but did you know that you can pickle a lot of other things, too--including squash?

I looked at the collection of squash I had from this Saturday and what I had left from the week before, and I realized I had a "problem of squash." So, I decided to solve that problem by picking the pattypans. I'd gotten this idea a couple of years ago, from Angie Wolter Utley, who had seen a recipe for pickling baby pattypan whole. We didn't have too many small squash, so I tried cutting big squash into chunks, and it turned out deliciously. I served them at Thanksgiving dinner and took some to a party, where they were a big hit. So, I pickled all the pattypan squash I had left and now I have several jars to enjoy this autumn and winter. It's easy to do, and the recipe is already posted on the blog here.

Since I used the yellow squash for baking experiments earlier on Saturday (see those results here) and I had pickled all the pattypans, all I had left in the way of squash now were a couple of zucchini. I made one into a delicious concoction with a few of the tomatoes--just slice the squash and the tomatoes, put them in rows in a greased casserole dish, and sprinkle with a little olive oil, then top with chopped basil, bread crumbs, and grated parmesan. Cook for about 25 minutes in a 350-degree oven, and you have a simple and tasty side dish.

Then I had one more zucchini, and I had a really crazy idea about how to prepare it in a delicious but not-too-healthy way. I'll let you know how it worked out in my next blog!