OLS Week#6: Doing my part

Annie Dillard once wrote that in July its impossible to pay someone to take your excess summer squashes. In fact, she says the only true way to get rid of them is to leave them on porches and door handles and RUN! Even Barbara Kingsolver tells tales of kitchen counters inundated with zucchinis, some the size of boats. “Could they design an automobile that runs on zucchinis?” she muses. If such a thing were possible, energy crises could easily be diverted for the summer at least.
I may never understand why I spend good money for people to tell me things I already know: you can feed a village on summer squashes. Actually, if you don’t, the result is something like ‘Dawn of the Zucchini’ or ‘Killer Curcurbits.’ The table at the farm (along with being covered by boxes of culled tomatoes) is overrun with squashes, zucchinis and cucumbers. The folks maintaining the squash plots have managed timely harvests and the results are rewarding, if not daunting to say the least. As for the zucchinis, well a little rain and a little time make for something that could substitute for a small baseball bat. Needless to say, the only thing eating these babies will be our compost.

I try to do my part: I’ve pickled cucumbers, made pickle relish, eaten squash at every meal and in every way imaginable. Here’s one I tried out this week. The recipe is a ‘family standard’ – I don’t even know where it comes from. Originally, it uses a package of frozen spinach and sour cream. I thought I might substitute this for chard and yogurt. The results were a little iffy; the yogurt wasn’t as thick as the sour cream and the whey separated making a watery mess in the pan. Turns out, though, the primary taste for the stuffing comes from the white wine vinegar – no dairy necessary. Here’s the final recipe:

4-6 yellow squash
good size bunch bunch of chard
1/3cup onion
garlic – a couple bulbs or, if you still have some, scapes.
White wine vinegar, salt, pepper to taste
Cheese
Bread crumbs

Boil squash for 10 minutes – until they are soft, but not fully cooked.
In a pan, sautee onion and garlic until soft. Add chard and vinegar and cook down. Season to taste.
Lightly spray a baking pan. When squash are finished boiling, let them cool for a bit. Then cut in half horizontally, scoop out the seeds and stuff with the chard mixture. Top with some cheese, bread crumbs and a pat of butter.
Bake at 400F for 15 minutes.

I had mine with some green beans, and a slice of whole wheat bread with butter. Yummo!