A New Squash Casserole

Or at least for us it was a new squash casserole.  For years I have made a squash lasagna and I will write that one up eventually but last night I was thinking about ways to make a simpler meal.  I had asked my daughter to cook supper and she is still in the learning stage…so I wanted to make it easy for her to do.

These are the instructions that I gave her:

Shred the squash in the food processor and put it in the colander to drain…squeeze it out after it sits for a few minutes.  Dump it into a bowl and add a couple of eggs, and a enough coconut flour to thicken it just a bit.

While the squash are draining season the tomato sauce to taste Italian.  (Basil, oregano, garlic, and fennel-but not too much or daddy will tell us he does not like it.)

Put the squash in a greased baking dish. (350)  Put on a layer of cheese and then the tomato sauce.  When it is done in about 30 minutes put on another layer of cheese.

Oh yes, do not forget the salt and pepper where it is needed.

It came out delightfully good for a first try.  We all thought hamburger or bacon would have been good in it and it would have been included except…search as we might, we could not find any without a trip to town which was not going to happen.   But even without the added meat this was a really tasty and fulfilling supper.

 

 

Canning Squash

 

Yesterday I put up 14 quarts of zucchini squash.  Since squash is one of those perfect GAPS/SCD foods and they are abundant this time of year.  If you do not grow your own, see if you can find a friend that has extras, or go visit a Farmer’s Market, by the end of the season they can be almost hard to give them away.   But I have a mindset to never let food go to waste if I can help it.  So I put up as much food as I can and often accept peoples leftovers for the purpose of keeping my pantries stocked and my freezers full.

Up front I have to say that the powers that dictate what we are and are not supposed to do tell us that Squash is something that we are not supposed to can.  I am a rebellious maverick in the kitchen…refusing for modernity to tell me that I cannot do something that my grandmother could have done.  I have to wonder some times how our grandmothers managed to raise all of those kids.

Over the years I have done squash in several ways. I did consider just doing them plain so they could be made into soups…but in the past I have found that doing them in tomatoes seems to produce the best long term taste.

The process is simple.  You wash your squash, cut them into chunks, and pack them into jars.  I add a little less than a tsp of salt to each jar and a good sprig of fresh basil.  (if you do not have fresh herbs, you can add your favorite Italian dry herbs..or skip this all together.)   Some years I add garlic but simply did not feel like messing with the garlic yesterday and decided it could be added later on when I reheat the squash for consumption.

In a large pan, I added some tomato sauce, three small cans of paste and some water.  (I have done this many ways…and if the tomatoes in the garden would have been a week further along I would have just used fresh tomatoes.   I got the tomatoes boiling and added a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar for every jar that I planned to process.

You must keep the tomato juice boiling, ladle this hot fluid over the squash, run a knife down the sides of the jar releasing air…wipe the jar tops and put on the lids. If you are inexperienced  at canning…please do more research on the canning process to better understand how it all works.

Use a pressure canner and process at 10 lbs of pressure for 40 minutes.

Later on when I reheat these I will add them to a sauted onion and some garlic.  Or I will add them to some soup.

Here is a link to another sites that gives you a different idea for putting up squash.  This one has you hot pack the squash.

http://pennypantry.com/canning/canning-squash-zucchini-and-tomatoes/

and here is another that gives a bit more precision to the process for those of you that like “exacts”.

http://www.food.com/recipe/Zucchini-in-Tomato-Sauce-Canning-134151