Last week a friend asked me what we’d been having for dinner recently. “Squash” was my quick reply. Between what the garden has been putting out and what friends have shared with us, we’ve had squash in some form or another for at least one meal a day since some time in July. I keep snapping photos along the way, meaning to share recipes with you (and me, because I often use this blog as one of my many recipe storage sites), but I just haven’t gotten around to it, so here we are with one big squash post instead.
I had planted patty pan squash this year – I’ve planted it a few years in a row now with no previous success, but this year that changed. They didn’t just do well, they did gangbusters and I learned the hard way to not let patty pan squash go unchecked too many days in a row.
So, what did I do with all my squash? Well, there’s the straight up sauteed in butter with onions and garlic as a side dish method and the toss with lemon, mint, feta and pasta method. There was stuffed squash and squash casserole, both dishes I whipped up after combing through all my old southern ladies groups and Southern Living Heritage cookbooks. When I served the squash casserole, Pat declared he hadn’t had that since a church dinner in his youth and while it was slightly thinner than he remembered, he declared I was on the right path. (Not sure if I didn’t drain it enough or if the lack of using a can of cream of anything soup was why. He thinks its the latter.)
We’ve had squash tucked into quiche, vegetable tacos, tostadas and quesadillas. It found its way on top of pizza, it got combined with Jennifer Jo’s wonderful bruschetta on day 4 and simmered for a few minutes, then tossed with whatever cheese was in the drawer and served with pasta, quinoa or just bread, inspired in part by the Farmer’s Stew recipe from Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors (which got made a few different ways this summer).
And then William (he of the generous duck egg sharing), dropped off a bag of zucchini, so I tried my hand at Preserving by the Pint’s zucchini butter (amazing!) while a batch of zucchini bread baked, I shredded some to freeze and Pat handled making zucchini fritters because as it turns out, patty pan squash, while mostly substitute-able for zucchini (and yellow crook neck squash) just isn’t the same for baking.
The squash season is coming to an end though – a check of the garden yesterday showed that the plants are fading fast as we approach the end of August. I’m pretty sure the people in my house reading this are quietly cheering the end of squash for dinner every night (both claim to not really be fans, although they are good sports about all the variations I come up with), although I’m not yet done with my experimentation. I still want to try Jennifer Jo’s stew, but with a drawer full of squash still yet to be eaten, I think I can pull it off.
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 
It’s such a cute squash, too. I rarely get to eat it, lucky you to have so much!
SO cute, which is exactly why I tried to grow it, because who doesn’t love cute food?
Oh my gosh that patty pan is huuuuge!!! I always see them tiny like small as your palm. So awesome. We can’t wait to have a garden! I know we will have squash coming out our ears haha great recipes here for those of us buying squash at the farmers markets too!
It’s the size of a dinner plate – what happens when you ignore the garden for three very rainy days. Thanks for stopping by!
I love summer squashes (not so fond of the harder-shelled, later season squashes). Is the patty pan squash soft-skinned, like zucchini and yellow squash?
It’s very similar to zucchini and yellow squash including the skin, although the bigger ones the skin does get a bit tougher.
You’re using squash in so many creative ways! I like the decorative quality of pattypan squashes.
It’s forced creativity, to avoid having the exact same thing for dinner every night. And the decorative quality is exactly why I grew them!