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Tuesday, August 05, 2008

in which I get all Betty Crockerish and give you a recipe

I tried a new recipe today, out of desperation, mainly, because I had a crisper and a garden full of squash and a girl can only eat so many pounds of steamed vegetables a day before she starts to sprout.

The big, funny-looking squash are a YUMMY heirloom variety called Zucchino Rampicante; I heartily recommend them to gardeners. One of those provided nearly eight cups of slices. (This is not one day's haul, but it's only part of what has been building up in the fridge over the past few days.)

So I began a quest for a good squash casserole recipe; I did *not* want the somewhat traditional one that's so full of butter you can barely taste the squash, but I ended up with something only marginally less unhealthy. I copied it almost entirely from cookinglight.com, except that those virtuous and healthy souls use ingredients like low-fat cheese and fat-free sour cream (which, frankly, ought to be outlawed out of respect), which I don't stock because Costco doesn't stock them and, well, because I like being fat. Apparently. So my re-fatted version of the recipe they so carefully de-fatted is as follows:

Simmer 8-10 cups of squash (sliced) along with one large onion (chopped) in a half cup to a cup of chicken broth (yes, that's 1/2 cup; it sounds like it's not enough but it works) in a covered Dutch oven.
Meanwhile, cook enough rice to yield about 2 cups. (I just did 2 c water and 1 c rice and didn't measure the result.)

When those two things are done, combine them, after you kind of mash up the squash and onion a tiny bit with a potato masher. Sounds moderately OK so far, right? Especially if you use brown rice... which I didn't this time, but I'm going to try it.

But now the fun part starts. Add a cup of sour cream, a cup of shredded cheddar cheese, a couple tablespoons of grated Parmesan, and a quarter- to half-cup of Italian-seasoned bread crumbs, along with a teaspoon or so of salt and some pepper. (The original recipe added two beaten eggs at this point, but I left them out because T has a strange allergy to them. It was fine without them but it might be even better with them.) Stir everything together and then spread it out in a prepared (sprayed with nonstick spray) 9"x13" pan. Sprinkle a few more bread crumbs, some more parmesan, and a tiny amount of cheese on top, and bake the whole shebang at 350º for about half an hour, until it's all bubbly.

I warn you that this is the kind of casserole that leaves you feeling far fuller half an hour after you eat it than you do at the moment when you finally persuade yourself to put down your fork. Some dishes, especially those laden with starch and dairy, are evilly magical that way.

The thing that pleased me most about this recipe, other than the fact that it has squash in it and my children and husband were actively enthusiastic about it, is that it didn't involve canned cream-of-anything soup. I was not in a cream-of-anything soup mood today, perhaps because it's August and we're having a rare spell of humidity along with our usual blistering August temperatures, or perhaps just because I have this uneasy feeling that canned cream-of-anything soup is kind of creepy and just wrong. (Ask me if that stops me from using it under ordinary circumstances.)

The recipes I referenced in my last post were both bread recipes (whole wheat bread -- I added cooked wheat berries -- and braided French bread) which I basically got straight from Pillsbury, so I won't copy them out here because I am so tired I can barely type because that would be a shameless violation of copyright.

Because this entry wasn't already full enough of boring kitcheny details, I'll go ahead and add that this is the week when we have to turn in our entry blanks for the county fair, and I have made a solemn vow that I will do my part to help resurrect the baked-goods room. Some of the exhibit divisions are thriving -- photography and knitting are really big right now, for example -- while some rooms (baked goods, preserved foods, and flowers) just get more and more empty every year. I'm terrible with flowers and I've only just started canning, but I can certainly make people fat with baked goods, and I decided last year at the fair to do my part to bring back the glory that was Building D in former days. As it is right now, there are about three elderlyish ladies (one of whom is my grandmother) who turn in the vast majority of the entries, and they usually only have enough stuff to put on three or four tables, and that is just sad. So I'm entering about five kinds of cookies, brownies, three kinds of bread, some rolls, biscuits, and even a jar of blackberry jam if I can get another batch made in time (in smaller jars this time). It'll barely make a dent but at least I'll see if I can beat my grandmother at anything. (Probably not.)

Comments

Posted by: Susan at August 6, 2008 08:21 AM

Posted by: Susan at August 6, 2008 08:24 AM

Posted by: Susan at August 6, 2008 08:24 AM

Posted by: Denise at August 6, 2008 12:23 PM

Posted by: Kat with a K at August 6, 2008 02:12 PM

Posted by: beth at August 6, 2008 06:34 PM

Posted by: jennifer at August 7, 2008 03:58 PM

Posted by: Heather at August 9, 2008 03:40 PM

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