Welcome the Summer Solstice; Welcome Summer Squash
June, 2024 (My Farmers' Market Basket will now be sent out once a month.)
…Judith experienced the kitchen as a place of pleasure, experimentation, creative engagement, and play…
From The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America
by Sara B. Franklin
As I started to write about summer squash, I realized that I describe many vegetables as “so versatile,” probably considerably more vegetables than I would say otherwise. In fact, what’s a non-versatile vegetable? Lettuce? I don’t know about that. I recently saw an Instagram post (@am_justaphoodie) where she grilled half a head of romaine. Not only was this intriguing, but the video also gave me my first ever look at a cross-section of romaine, which was fun to see. In Jacques Pepin’s Quick & Simple, he has a recipe for “Iceberg and Garlic Sauté” where the master himself writes that iceberg lettuce “…is good cooked as well as raw.” Who knew? Then, in the recent film The Taste of Things, the protagonist plunks whole heads of what appears to be butter/bibb lettuce into boiling water, then an ice bath, then wrings out the heads like they are a wash rag, and ultimately braises these now tight-fisted bundles with a hunk of meat—honestly, I could barely watch. What she was doing to those once bright, crisp, billowy, garden fresh heads looked criminal to me, and the end result: unappetizing. But even if raw salad is the best use of lettuce, just think of the wide variety of salads that can be created. Lettuce, too, is versatile.
Yes, fresh produce is playtime. For many of us, vegetables are like our paints, the kitchen our studio, the pot or pan our canvas, and the plate a frame for our creation. Some of us are sophisticated, talented artists; others, like myself, are amateur hobbyists just having fun with the medium.
And what fun there is to be had with summer squash. Let me list just a sample of summer squash recipes: zucchini and tomato gratin (Chez Panisse Vegetables, Alice Waters and Patricia Curtan); summery zucchini-lemon soup (The Santa Monica Farmers’ Market Cookbook, Amelia Saltsman); squash salsa (Coyote Cafe, Mark Miller); Ikarian-style stuffed zucchini (Ikaria, Diane Kochilas); zucchini flan (Quick & Simple, Jacques Pepin); zucchini bread (any number of sources.)
Now, with all that can be done with summer squash, mostly I spiralize it. Because Anna needs to be on the SCD, we are a grain-free (not even gluten-free grains) household, and nothing, absolutely nothing, beats spiralized summer squash as a spaghetti substitute. Before the SCD entered my life, over 20 years ago, regular spaghetti was just about my most favorite food in the whole world. The majority of my dinners were merely a question of what I was putting over the stuff.
Based on this, I assumed I was a carb-addict. But apparently not. I left spaghetti behind and made the switch, when called to, without so much as a backward glance. (Though, no doubt, if I’d been used to artisanal pastas, such as those that my daughter Lena enjoys, crafted by The Pasta Lab, this change would have been tougher for me.) I learned that my relationship with spaghetti was not based on its carbohydrates, but what I did with it, the appeal of having a heaping bowl in front of me, and twirling it on my fork.
Because spiralized summer squash meets those needs just like regular spaghetti used to, the sight of the season’s first squash fills me with glee. “Spaghetti,” and lots of of it, dominate our summer meals, making up for the rest of the year when summer squash is not available.
(Spaghetti squash is good, but a whole other story. More on that when winter squash season commences.)
Speaking of Summer Squash
As I danced and sang in celebration of the Costata Romanesco summer squash I saw at the Taproot Farm stand a couple Saturdays ago, Chris detected something faulty in my improvised lyrics: I was using “zucchini” interchangeably with “summer squash.” Being more familiar with “courgette” himself, he took to the internet to figure out what was what and, as he suspected, informed me that zucchini (which is the same as “courgette”) is a type of summer squash. All zucchinis are summer squash; not all summer squashes are zucchini. This is interesting and useful for me to know, though not very game-changing. Yellow squash (straightneck or crookneck) and pattypan, for example, are not zucchini. Yellow squash is sometimes spiralizable, sometimes not. Pattypan is never spiralizable so, when I get my hands on that variety, I use it for other recipes.
My Own Spiralized Summer Squash Tips and Pointers
The more it has dried out before putting it in the oven, the better. So, try to spiralize well ahead of time, letting it sit, spread out, on the cutting board or baking pan. Sometimes I press a sheet or two of paper towel on top to absorb some of the water content.
Don’t use oil, such as olive oil, to cook the spiralized squash, as the squash naturally has a lot of water and this will result in a yucky “oil and water not mixing” effect. I always use butter/ghee which, I’m guessing, works because it is a saturated fat.
I do not put the spiralized squash in the oven until the oven is fully heated to 350. After a few minutes, when the butter/ghee is melted, I move the zucchini around to get it thoroughly coated. I cook it for a few minutes more until the zucchini is soft and cooked down just a little bit. If I let it stay in the oven too long, the zucchini will quickly go from “al dente” to watery, and I don’t want that.
Spiralized summer squash can also be tossed in with something on the stovetop during the final stage of cooking. But the spaghetti will release water, so make it quick to minimize any undesirable wateriness.
This article from inspiralized.com also has some helpful insights.
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Between Marketing and Cooking We Have Storing
Last Saturday I dropped my baskets off at home before going back to the market to do more shopping, and then some errands. I told Anna “Don’t worry about putting anything away.” Well, helpful young woman that she is, I came home to find that, while she may not have worried about it, she’d put just about everything away—before I could get photos of my market purchases to include here. That’s okay. Not only did she thoughtfully spare me a time-consuming task, but this gives me an opportunity to explain our produce storage method.
Kitchen Garden Textiles has moved on to The PA Flax Project but, from them, I learned this (copied and pasted from their August 3, 2022 Instagram post)
How do you like your veggies? Crisp and fresh? Wrapped in linen? How about both! Linen keeps your veggies fresher for longer. It's antimicrobial, and keeps water loving veggies crisp as can be. Use a linen kitchen towel or produce bags: Just get the linen damp, put your veggies, pop in your crisper, and you're all set! Your veggies will stay fresh for at least a week longer.
I tried this method and, for the most part, found it to be true. So I invested in a bunch of linen towels and pouches. The one thing I do in addition to the above recommendation is this: once I have linen-wrapped something I put it in a plastic bag (yes, I know, it’s plastic, but they are reusable and I reuse them hundreds of times). Though I do this primarily to help keep the linen damp, it also helps to keep the linen from unfolding. I don’t know whether it makes a difference or not, but I use produce-specific plastic bags purchased from Amazon.
So, Anna’s job this past Saturday was a big one, especially considering how much produce I, as usual, came home with. For each item, she had to dampen a linen towel or pouch, wrap the item, put it in the reusable plastic bag and then—hardest part of all—find space in the refrigerator, making sure to give more fragile items, like delicate lettuce, priority for that prime drawer space.
Exceptions to this system:
Some items, like green beans, we’ve learned, prefer their linen bags dry rather than damp.
For most herbs I use an “herb keeper,” different brands of which can be found on Amazon. I know these herb keepers work just like putting the herbs in a glass of water, but I appreciate their ease of use and how securely they fit in my fridge. These are also great for asparagus.
Onions that require refrigeration go in as is. But fresh onions, the kind with green tops, go in wrapped like most other items.
Then, of course, some items, such as tomatoes and winter squash, are counter dwellers. My refrigerator really appreciates those counter dwellers.
Handy to know: Don’t put fresh produce on the top shelf of the refrigerator. A year or two ago, I was telling George, of Taproot Farm, about how sometimes my refrigerated produce would essentially freeze, ruining it and upsetting me. His response, as if I was already familiar with this concept: “Oh, is it that top shelf thing?” Oh my. I’d never heard of “that top shelf thing.” Yes it was. I don’t understand the how or why of this, but ever since I’ve made the top shelf off limits for my market produce, nothing has ever again experienced that killing freeze—yet another reason to thank a farmer.
I did manage to get one basket photo. It is not this week’s full, heaping collection of produce purchases which Anna put away. It’s just, like jewels, my…
Taproot Farm Small-Sized CSA Share
Till Next Month, Happy Marketing!
I’m also on Instagram @myfarmersmarketbasket
Loved this visual: "I danced and sang in celebration of the Costata Romanesco summer squash"
I love summer squash not so much zucchini. Do you have a spiralizer? Which one? Great note about the ghee versus 00.