Zucchini and Yellow Squash

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One of the truly great pleasures in life is to plant edible things, watch them grow, then harvest them, mix them with a few (usually very few) well-chosen ingredients and then savor them.  The pleasure is all the greater if it can be done with family and friends and a decent bottle of wine.

We've planted three yellow squash, three zucchini, seven tomato plants (cherry, Roma, two slicing varieties), five eggplants (which were supposed to have been Asian but are not) and eight red, orange and yellow peppers.  The rest of our produce (and eggs!) has come from Katharine's garden or Farmers Markets.

Fajitas

One of our favorite quick and easy summer dinners involving zucchini or squash (and tomatoes!) is fajitas.  We slice either kind of squash into about the same size as the peppers and toss each veggie separately with a bit of canola oil and season them with salt, then grill them on medium high.  Onions typically go on first, then peppers, then squash.  We cut up tomatoes (slicing tomatoes are cut into thinnish wedges, cherry tomatoes are halved) and salt them a bit, and tear off some leaves of romaine.  We use a tortilla warmer to heat flour tortillas, then we grab a selection of salsas (Pickapepper and Frontera Arbol or Ancho or any chipotle salsa for me; Cholula or Valentina for Mark at the moment).  If we have a piece of meat left over from the previous evening we slice it then and heat it.  (PS, Rick Bayless' margaritas go very nicely with this).

Squash  Blossoms



You know all those pretty blossoms on the yellow squash and zucchini plants?  They can be harvested, lightly battered and fried for some serious scrumptiousness.  We were first introduced to this delicacy when we were traveling in France with Lauren (who was two at the time).

When the flower is on the end of a baby zucchini, the whole thing can be harvested and fried.

Squash Pancakes/Frittata
When I was on the search for eggplant recipes, I came across a gold mine of a website called "Serious Eats".  On it was a suggestion for squash pancakes.  I thought we might try it for our Meatless Mondays dinner, and in general it was quite tasty but we will be using egg instead of yogurt as a binder next time so we can get a more frittata-like texture.