Help, I have home raised squash coming out my ears.

[Reciprocity]

I need recipes!!!!!!!
Thanks in advance.

[Warpy]

1. Slice zucchini and add to tomato sauce

Just cook it until it's crisp-tender. It gives a wonderful peppery flavor to ordinary tomato sauce.

There's a recipe for zucchini chocolate cake, http://www.recipelink.com/ch/2000/may/joyofgardening3.html. I had it at a friend's house years ago. The occasional green fleck in the cake was a little disconcerting, but the cake was delicious, much lower calorie than a standard cake would be.

About.com is a great resource for oddball recipes: http://southernfood.about.com/od/zucchinirecipes/

Some of these look good, http://www.aliciasrecipes.com/zucchini-squash-recipes/default.htm

Then you could always let one of them get to the 4 foot long stage, hollow it out, throw the pulp away (it's like wet cardboard) and use it as a serving dish for a party.

[SoCalDem]

2. Zucchini bread

yum yum yum...

or battered zucchini strips :)

grilled zucchini...
slice lengthwise scoop out the "innards"...chop it up and mix with breadcrumbs & parmesan..broil for a smidge and put on the bbq grill to finish cooking the "boats"

[troubleinwinter]

3. Send it to me.

What kinda squash?

[Reciprocity]

4. Oops sorry forgot to say ....

they are yellow but we have Zucchini coming as well. Thanks all for the links and recipes!

[politicat]

5. I'll happily take your excess... ours won't bear for 35 days.

At least. We have late summers, but long autumns.

But if you can't be persuaded to part with any... use the carrot-bran muffin recipe here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x21239 and replace the carrots with shredded squish (this is what my 4 yo nephew calls it). You can also shred and freeze the squish when you have tons and defrost for use in the winter.

If it's too hot to bake where you are and you have a toaster oven, get a mini muffin tray and bake 6 at a time in that. Alternately, if you thin the muffin batter, you can make a nice pancake with squash, bran or carrots.

[grasswire]

6. already???

Wow.

[wryter2000]

7. Send me some!

Winter went on forever, so I won't have squashes for ages still. They haven't even shown up in the farmer's market.

[Reciprocity]

8. It's already summer here in Deep East Texas.

If the heat (90°) won't kill you the humidity (48%) will. Of corse the mantra around here is "if you think it's hot now, just wait until August!"

We have to start our gardens early (we prep the garden in February) because by the time June gets here it burns up tender vegetables. Take tomatoes for example. A hot weather plant if there ever was one. We start ours in mid-March. The thing about tomatoes are, the blooms will drop if daytime temperatures are below 55° and blooms will not set if night temperatures exceed 75° or day temperatures exceed 92°. So by the end of June (if we are lucky) our tomatoes season is over.

[wryter2000]

11. Wow

And I thought I had it hard with tomatoes. We drop into the 40's at night regularly all through summer (Oakland, CA). As a result, there aren't many tomatoes that do well here -- none of the beefsteak types will ripen worth a darn. However, Early Girls produce tomatoes starting at the end of June and going past Christmas sometimes. This year, I won't get any until the end of July, and the squashes haven't even sprouted.

[eleny]

9. Zucchini Relish

Shred them up in a processor and this recipe is a snap. Zucc relish is so much milder than pickle. This recipe is from here where there are many others to choose.
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1936,141191-238201,00.html


10 c. zucchini, chopped - about 9 med.
4 c. onions, chopped - about 3 lg.
5 tbsp. salt

Mix the above and let stand overnight - rinse and drain.

1 tbsp. cornstarch
2 tsp. celery seed
1 sweet red pepper, chopped and seeded
1 green pepper, chopped and seeded
5 c. sugar
2 1/2 c. vinegar
1 tbsp. turmeric
1 tsp. black pepper

Add remaining ingredients and simmer 30 minutes.

Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal. Makes about 7 pints. Super on hot dogs - better then sweet relish.

[japple]

10. Thanks for the relish recipe. I made tons of the stuff last year and

it was wonderful. Everyone wanted some, so I started having to ration it. Our squash won't be ready for probably 4 weeks, but I need to start getting ready. Here in GA, it's not as hot as South Texas, but our squash will probably dry up around mid-July, which is probably a good thing, because then I'll be into tomatoes big time. We planted more beans and peas this year, so I'll probably be freezing up a storm in July. It's worth every minute of time I spend growing it and putting it up.

[eleny]

12. A neighbor of mine had me over to make some that first time

Instead of it being little diced bits, the squash relish is sort of little strings. And the flavor is so light. She used a very uncomplicated recipe, too. I can't find my recipe tin. But that recipe I posted sounds just like it.

Btw, if I find my recipe box in time, I'll post my tomato-prune jam recipe. I found that in the newspaper way back in the early 70s and always liked it. It sounds weird but it's delicious. I've never been able to find a recipe for it on the web. So I need to take the house apart and find my recipe box. We renovated several years ago and I can't seem to find where I stashed it.

[japple]

13. Tomato-prune Jam? That does sound weird.

When my step-son moved into the "old homeplace" a few years ago, he had to clean out the root cellar which hadn't been opened in several years. In addition to a couple of old cannon balls, he found a bottle labeled "tomato wine." I can't remember if the bottle was dated, but his mother thinks it might have been from the 1950s. He said it smelled like hell and tasted even worse. That was the first I'd ever heard of tomato wine, and I meant to research it further but never got around to it. Maybe I'll put that on my list of things to check into.

[eleny]

15. The tom-prune jam tastes good

It doesn't even have an acidic bite to it. The tomato is tamed pretty well. But 50 year old tomato wine? Wild!

[yellowdogintexas]

14. grate the zuchinni and bag it in 1 cup portions and freeze

then you can pull it out when you need it for zuchinni bread, cake etc.

[NJCher]

16. try them when they're "young"

You can't have enough zucchini (both yellow and green) if you like squash blossoms (try 'em stuffed) and pick the squash when it's a "baby." Cut the little zucchinis when they are only 3" long. Yum. Very tender.




Cher

[eleny]

17. That reminds me!

My mom used to pick the squash blossoms, dip them in a plain batter and pan fry them in a scant bit of oil. Oh yum!

[japple]

18. Zucchini on the barbee is fabulous. Cut in half lengthwise, brush with

olive oil. Grill on BBQ until tender.

When you start getting bell peppers, mix some of that frozen grated zucchini with rice and tomatoes, garlic, italian herbs, and make stuffed peppers. Top with grated parmesan. Add chopped meat if you want. When our zucchini start coming in, I make icebox pickles with it, just like the recipe for icebox cucumbers. If you don't have that one and would like it, let me know and I'll look it up. I think everyone knows that one.

[spindrifter]

19. I never have luck growing zukes!

I'm jealous! I love them young, sliced in salads, cooked with eggplant, onion, tomato, peppers (a mixture of kinds), loads of olive oil and oregano. Or then there are stuffed zukes--stuff with rice and shredded cooked chicken or ground turkey (if you are not a red meat eater).

[politicat]

20. Got bees?

You must have bees to have decent squish. Else, you have to get a soft paint brush and pollinate the flowers yourself.

A couple years ago, I had great, gorgeous squish plants that produced tons of blossoms and not a damn fruit. The neighborhood had been spraying for skeeters to keep West Nile under control, and the insecticide killed a bunch of the bee hives in the area. The bees have recovered since then, but I learned to pollinate by hand late that summer.

[spindrifter]

21. We have plenty of bees, so that's not

the issue. Tomatoes do fine. Rhubarb does great. It's just the zucchinis that are a fizzle.

[politicat]

22. Seriously, try hand pollination.

Bees will skip squish because the flowers are trumpety, and the nectar is harder to get at. Lazy bees.

[kestrel91316]

24. I should get lots of squash this year. I now have a wild beehive at

the base of my dying, old, termite-riddled (termites now gone) apricot tree. It's fun to stand and watch the bees coming and going. They are very gentle and don't mind if you keep still. They are only 25 feet from my squash plants, so I think they will do their job.

[The empressof all]

23. Fried Zucchini Flowers

We do a huge binge on deep fried blossoms at least once a season. This helps curtail the harvest and they are just so yummy. I dip them in beer batter, or just flour,salt and pepper with a little cornmeal. Deep fry until crisp. If you have patience they are great stuffed with cream cheese (mixed with jalapenos or garlic and basil) tied off on the top, dipped in batter and deep fried. You want to pick the blossom when it has just the hint of a baby zucchini to use as a handle for eating. This is the way zucchini was meant to be eaten IMO.

If you are stuck with the actual squash, I brush with olive oil and garlic and grill or make ratatouille. (Zucchini, eggplant, onion, garlic and tomato stewed)

[jeanarrett]

25. I make them like this and they are good. . . my kids love them.

I get some Drakes and slice the yellow squash up into about 1/2 inch rounds, throw them in the bag with some Drakes to coat them and then saute in butter and some oil until browned and crispy on both sides. Kind of like fried green tomatoes. My mom made them like this when we were kids and everyone got sick of them steamed with butter and salt and pepper. I spice them up with other things--whatever you like, garlic salt, Lawry's, pepper, onion powder, cumin, chili pepper, whatever.

[wildeyed]

26. SUMMER SQUASH SOUP with BASIL

2 T Olive Oil
1 1/4 lbs zucchini, crookneck, or pattypan squash, roughly chopped
1 lg onion, chopped
6 cups vegetable stock
1 1/2 T butter
1 1/2 T flour
Salt and Pepper to taste
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 c basil, julienned
Sour Cream or Plain Yogurt as an accompaniment

Heat the oil in a lg saucepan or stockpot. Saute the onion and
squash for 5 mins or until onions are translucent and zucchini is
crisp tender. Add stock, bring to a boil, reduce heat, partially
cover and cook for 25 mins. Mix the butter and flour together into
a paste. Remove 1 c stock and whisk in the butter/flour mixture.
Add back into soup and stir until slightly thickened. Remove from
heat and pour into a blender or food processor...puree until smooth
(vent the blender so your soup doesn't explode all over the
kitchen!!) Season with salt and pepper. Add the lemon juice, and
basil and serve with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt if desired.