Good Gardening, Good Food

Two of my favorite blogs have posted on broccoli recently.  Roses and Other Gardening Joys lamented that her broccoli was starting to flower - I have heard the expression 'bolt.'  I think I like 'flower' better - it implies something beautiful is happening.  Then this past week, The English Kitchen introduced me to purple broccoli - complete with a recipe, I can't help but wonder what it tastes like. 

Someday I'd like to try growing broccoli in my garden, not this week.  This week I'm planting summer squash.  I just put a few plants in around the perennials and add a few seeds here and there and we'll have squash in approximately 50 days.

Summer "Straightneck" Squash - in the beginning..

Squash is one of those vegetables that I had to learn to like.  When I was growing up squash casserole could be found everywhere.  Sometimes hidden under fried onions or cracker crumbs or both, it was  there - warm, salty and squashy.  I learned to eat squash casserole (it seemed the polite thing to do).  These days I like to have it raw in salads, but, truth is, I like it best fried.  It's easy to do and I'm looking forward to cooking it this way when I have my first harvest.

I start by washing the veggies.

Trim off both ends.

Slice them in neat, little strips - all the same size (I wish!).

This is where I tell you "Yes, you may cut them up in little neat circles."  I think I learned to eat fried squash like this because I thought it was little fish.  (Besides being a polite child I was also very gullible.)

Sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper, then dust them with cornmeal.

Here they are all ready to cook.

This cast iron skillet is my secret ingredient. 
Turn on the heat for 4 minutes (you want a medium hot skillet to
cook your squash) then add just a bit of oil and butter.

Add the squash, cook 3 or 4 minutes.

Turn and cook the other side - 3 or 4 minutes, longer if you want to brown them.
You can turn them more than once - come on, play with your food - experiment to see how you like them.

As you can see I like my squash a little 'toasty.'

For now I'll just weed and water my garden and get ready for our big harvest.  Don't just sit there!   Cook or plant something today. Why not do both?  And if you've got a squash casserole recipe that really, really tastes good - can I please have it?

*