Cooking our First Summer Squash

The squash is growing!  We have our first actual summer squash, and it's ready to pick.  It's that glorious bright yellow and just the right size for us to eat.

I was excitedly showing it off to my husband, and he asked skeptically "so. . .you like squash?"

"Oh no," I replied, "I was kind of hoping you did.  It's from those shared seeds. . .they were free, so I grew squash."

There was a long pause, and then from beside me I heard a quiet "um, no. Never been a fan.  I don't suppose you know how to cook it."

In that moment, I realized that one of the biggest producers in my garden was a crop I'd never liked and didn't know how to cook.  My mom suggested a cool recipe, which I'll try with the next squash--goodness knows I'll have plenty of practice because there are plenty of baby squash out there growing.  If that's a success, I'll post it in a blog entry later because I don't have the ingredients for it today.

In the meantime, thank goodness for google recipe search. If you haven't used it, you should give it a try.  You can access it at the google recipe search landing page here:  http://www.google.com/landing/recipes/, or you can just type your ingredient into the google search bar, then choose "recipe" from the left column of search options (see image at left).

It's great because you can choose your ingredients by putting them the in the search bar or by checking "yes" or "no" from the suggested ingredients on the left (see image at right).  It's not perfect, I'd like to see a longer list of suggest ingredients, but it's great because it searches several recipe blogs and sites at once.  Using the suggested ingredients list meant I was able to select only things I had on hand in the house.  And the recipe search found a few choices that work with what I have.


The recipe I went with was at epicurious, and it's called "Herbed Summer Squash and Potato Torte with Parmesean."  It looks delicious, and (equally importantly) includes a simple list of ingredients I have here at home:  potatoes, squash, onions, flour, herbs/spices.  You can find it here:  http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Herbed-Summer-Squash-and-Potato-Torte-with-Parmesan-105167.