Using up all that squash

Sunday, August 03, 2008

This Summer has been one of the busiest for me I can ever remember...so much so that it’s putting a damper on the amount of time I have to cook and preserve.  Part of this is a lack of variety in my CSA share, but here it is August and I haven’t frozen anything for the Winter saved for a bit of spinach and swiss chard.  Last year by this time I had vast amounts of corn, beets, beans, and roasted peppers frozen, as well as lots of tomato sauce canned up.  Hope springs eternal that I’ll be able to catch up by the end of the month.

Even though this Summer seems to be passing by at the speed of light, I was able to cook at least a couple of local meals this past week.

This past Monday was a day off from work for me.  I tend to have breakfast every day, but it’s usually something like a bagel I pick up on the way to work.  Since I found myself at home with quite a few squash, I decided to make scrambled eggs with shredded yellow squash, collard pesto, parmesan cheese, and chives.  It was pretty delicious, and a very nice way to prepare myself to see the new X-Files movie (which was slightly disappointing - the movie, not the scrambled eggs).

eggs, Natural Acres - 100 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
squash, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
parmesan, Hendricks Farm - 39 miles
chives, my garden - 0 miles
pesto - 0 -100 miles

My second meal also featured summer squash (can you sense a pattern here)?  I broke out my mandoline to slice up yellow squash thinly, and then breaded and baked the slices.  I served these up with a bit of parmesan and some lacinato kale.

egg white, Natural Acres - 100 miles
bread crumbs, made from Le Bus bread - 15 miles
squash, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
parmesan, Hendricks Farm - 39 miles
lacinato kale, my garden - 0 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles

I still have more yellow squash and zucchini to use.  It looks like maybe there will be some zucchini ribbons in my future.