One of the fun things our first few years of growing our own food taught us was how to get creative with meal time.
When you’re looking at your 12th consecutive day of having yellow squash for dinner, you want to spice things up – literally and figuratively!
We’ve got the fried squash down perfectly. In fact, it’s usually requested by the June birthday girl since its the best thing.
Sadly though, we can’t live off fried squash so we started looking at other flavors we liked and tried them with squash.
One of the earliest attempts was squash pickles.
They were a start but not really a meal.
One of us got to craving pizza but this mound of produce kept staring at us. We then had the idea of taking some of the bigger squash and turning them into pizza boats!
This was a great way to use up the larger squash that weren’t as tender as the smaller ones but are still just as delicious. We also cooked these on the grill since it’s just too hot to run the oven in the house.
We took 2 good sized squash and cleaned and prepped them. They were washed, cut in half and the insides scooped out for either the compost pile or chickens.
They were seasoned with salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder, as well as since Italian seasoning, since we’re making pizzas, after all. We drizzled with olive oil and set cut side down on the pre-lit grill over medium heat for about 6 to 7 minutes. Try to avoid any burning at this step. It’s not a yummy taste.
After that, flip the squash over so the skin can cook and so that the pizza toppings can get started. We used some ready made pizza sauce but of course homemade will be just as good. Spoon 2 to 3 spoonfuls then start layering in toppings. Pre-cooked Italian sausage or ground beef , pepperoni slices, basically any protein that you like on a pizza goes great here. Then some veggies. We love mushrooms so those were a given. Peppers, onions, spinach would all be great too. Top with any kind of mild, easy melting cheese like provolone or mozzarella and a little more Italian seasoning. Return to the grill and finish off for about another 4 to 5 minutes or until the squash is fork tender and the toppings are melted and bubbling slightly.
Cool for a couple minutes and then dig in!
We also a squash hamburger bun and even squash “mac and cheese”.
We used our own frozen squash, cut into slices and then halved. They went right into a pot to cook in their own juices from frozen. A little salt and pepper to season.
After the squash had cooked through, we lightly drained it and added a can of cheese soup. Just a splash of milk was used to thin the soup. Not much was needed since there was so much liquid from the squash. From there, we seasoned to taste and were ready to dig in!
The squash mac was in pretty heavy rotation because it is so easy and tastes good too.
Do you have any squash recipes we need to try? Any other twists on a favorite that we missed? Share in the comments and let us know!
Green Journal Homestead 