BIG zucchinis, First Medium-Sized Tomatoes, Recipes

We have one variety of zucchini (Sweet Zuke) on which the fruits seem to to successfully hide among the stems and leaves of the plants until they get VERY BIG.  You can see a younger one at the top of the photo.  The big ones have lost their gloss, but the skin still seems tender.  You also need a knife to pick this one, as it often breaks at the neck if you're not careful. 

Anybody have a good stuffed zucchini recipe?  Microwave recipes welcome for hot weather.  Otherwise, the big ones are good for zucchini bread and zucchini pancakes, either fancy gluten- and dairy-free ones or make them more like traditional (grated) potato pancakes.    David's Mom uses a little Bisquick with the zucchini.  There are also recipes which add cheese, corn and other ingredients.  A slice of tomato on top might be nice.  Aunt Virginia used to serve sliced tomatoes with (unsweetened) French Toast. Wonderful. 

We've been picking cherry tomatoes, Yellow Perfection and Garden Peach (from purchased plants) for a while now.  Garden Peach is a small, non-shiny pale yellow tomato with a faint "fuzz" that wipes off.  Nice sweet flavor with a little acid, but not too much "tomato" flavor.   Slightly fruity in flavor.

Our first medium-sized tomato, slightly bigger than Yellow Perfection, ripened about May 28.   Fourth of July is the variety.  Makes sense, as it is a very early one.  Tough skin, but easy to peel and nice tomato flavor and red color.  Others followed right away - Big Beef, Aunt Ginny's Purple (actually rosy pink - the name makes me think of Aunt Virginia)  and not-so-giant Belgium Giant.  David says the last one tastes like the tomatoes his grandpa used to grow.  Picked a couple of dark Nyagous with green shoulders, too.  Both had a crack at the shoulder.  Uncharacteristic of this variety.  I was surprised to get them right after Fourth of July, as this is supposed to be a later tomato.  Had some smokey flavor, but Fourth of July had more "tomato" flavor.  

We also got a Little Lucky (yellow and blush bicolor).  Sweet, not too flavorful, but the first tomatoes are often not representative.   I picked an Indian Striped tomato yesterday.  It still had green shoulders, though it can reportedly be picked when it looks ripe, unlike many other dark tomatoes.  It has a crack in the shoulder.  I'll let it sit for a couple of days before we eat it. 

We've had several days at or above 100 degrees already.  There have been some spider mite-related foliage problems already.  Next year, I'll try to start seeds in mid-January and plant them out soon after March 15. 

What happens when we skip a day picking squash?

They just keep growing.  A few of zucchinis are stuffing size now.

The squash we should have picked yesterday, plus today's harvest, is below with some windfall Flavor Delight Apriums and Harcot Apricots (the ones with the red blush).  These two varieties are well-adapted here, along with the apricots Golden Sweet (commercial variety, just coming off patent and becoming available for home growers), Robada (commercial, sweet pit variety, needs a pollenizer, developed by USDA) and Tomcot (best with a pollenizer)

Today was the best gardening day we've had in a while.  I also transplanted some extra seedlings from a row of melons.  They HATE that when they have true leaves, but I think some of them will make it.  Tied up the cucumbers, too.

I'm not much on gardening in containers in summer in our hot climate, but I planted Red Russian kale in a pot with some chrysanthemums last fall.  I used it often in salads with angel hair-cut cabbage.  It is more tender than most kale varieties.

It's bolting now.  You can see its skinny seedheads and yellow blossoms behind the chrysanthemums, which seem to have picked an odd time to bloom again.  The color of Red Russian kale is great with chrysanthemums with blue-green leaves and purplish or pink flowers.

I also threw caution to the wind this year and planted some peppers (Mariachi and Monster Jalapeno) in a pot with some marigolds.  They're next to a pot o' ground cherries (first time I'm trying these), in the afternoon shade of a couple of big English roses.  Most places, I would not recommend shade for hot peppers.  Here, in a pot, yes.  I'll let you know how they do.

Early Harvest, 2013

Above, an all-yellow early harvest: Two Yellow Perfection tomatoes (a variety from England - smaller than a ping pong ball), three Sungold tomatoes (even smaller) and one baby Meteor yellow zucchini. They're nestled among the prettiest weed of the season, Mexican Evening Primrose.   Yellow Perfection is a pleasant tomato with some sweetness, on the mild side but not bland.  The great Sungold has not come into its own yet this season.  Both varieties had tough skin on these first tomatoes (on the plant before transplant).  

We've only had a few Sungold tomatoes and one other Yellow Perfection (given away) so far this season. Should have started a couple of weeks earlier. Next year. . . .

Update: the day after I harvested the first squash of the year above, I got a Magda, a Zephyr and a Sweet Zuke (examples pictured in a previous post here. )  Princess Kitty Darla has  more kitty friends now than she did in the picture at the link and may now qualify as Queen.   I also got a Butter Scallop the second day (looks like its name) and a Supersett (yellow crookneck).  Same old seeds I had in 2011, pretty much.   By May 11, two days after the first zucchini was harvested, we had a total of 19 squashes.  Once these plants start . . . I also planted Peter Pan, a scallop, from quite old seed.  It is behind the others in development.  

 The lettuce above is now too bitter to eat, but it was nice while it lasted.  Doesn't take much potting mix to grow cut-and-come-again leaf lettuce in winter here.  These are growing in trays from supermarket barbecued chicken.  My favorite cool-season crops this year were Tatsoi and its later blossoms, broccoli and Red Russian kale.  UPDATE for Gilly:   Tatsoi is one of the cutest edible plants ever, and would look nice with pansies or other low-growing plants.  I planted Red Russian Kale in a pot with some mauve and pink chrysanthemums.

Little Squashes

Darla the Kitty Princess checks out a platter of summer squash in her flower border. Some of the ones she's looking over would qualify as "baby squash" - the kind I could never afford when I lived in Southern California and occasionally visited the upscale Irvine Ranch market.

I think the very cutest baby squashes are the scallop types (in white, all shades of green, pale yellow, deep yellow, rings,  stripes, and combinations) and the crooknecks. And "round zucchinis" have gone beyond the old European heirlooms and their progeny to standardized hybrids. They make for a fun picture arranged like billiard balls. But I'm not growing any of those this year.

Even though I've simplified our squash list, we've still got 8 plants of summer squash this year - way too many for one family, unless you plan on giving some away. Even if you give lots of squash away, you can be overwhelmed if you don't pick them young. The ones on the platter are:

Magda:   A pale green, fat Lebanese (Cousa) type bred in France. My favorite zucchini. First to produce this year, as usual.
Sweet Zuke:   Medium green with faint stripes, shaped something like the Cousa types when it gets bigger. I bought seeds for this variety as a darker companion to Magda. Tends to break at the neck when picked.
Spineless Beauty:   Zucchinis on a less-prickly, less-hairy plant. They're the ones in the photo with the blossoms still attached. How high-end is THAT? My favorite variety name for a "hairless" zucchini was "Kojac". This type really is more pleasant to pick than regular zucchini.
Meteor:   A deep yellow zucchini, very slim when young.  Apparently being dropped from production. Yellow zucchinis taste a lot more like green zucchini than like the yellow crooknecks and straightnecks. They probably have a different profile of phytonutrients than the green ones, so if you're a zucchini fan, growing both could be good for you.
Precious II:   A hybrid straightneck yellow squash which resists greening from a common squash virus.  They're the ones that look sort of like pale yellow bowling pins in the photo.
Zephyr:   The one in the photo that's yellow on top and pale green on the bottom. A unique squash bred by Johnny's Selected Seeds. Has a winter squash in its parentage, and is rather firm.  Nice flavor.  Reported to keep better in the fridge than most varieties.

I planted two plants each of Magda and Zephyr. Thought I had 9 plants in all, but the Butterstick I thought I planted turned out to be a melon. Maybe I'm a little crazy for planting so many. But the bounty doesn't last forever. Summer squashes tend to produce so much fruit that they seem to wear themselves out after a while.

In our yard, the yummy yellow squashes, both crookneck and straightneck, tend to succumb to disease and/or insects faster than the zucchini types. Here, it's possible to put in a fall crop of summer squash if the white flies and squash bugs aren't too bad and soil diseases don't get to the plants.

Recipes: Okie Squash and Tomatoes is a good recipe for people who are not wild about zucchini by itself. Skillet Lasagna with Shredded Zucchini works even for most people who don't like zucchini because of its texture.

Recipes using less than a can of pumpkin

For people who are concerned about wasting food, pumpkin recipes using less than a can of pumpkin call for recipes which use the remaining amount of pumpkin.  A 15 oz. can of pumpkin contains about 1 3/4 cups. A 29 oz. can contains about 3 1/2 cups. Following are some recipes which use less than these amounts. Of course, you could also use home-grown, cooked and pureed winter squash (such as butternut or a variety of pumpkin bred for culinary use rather than display):

3/4 cup pumpkin.

Pumpkin Rice Pudding: No wheat, no eggs.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding 8-inch pan. A little less sugar, more fat than the extravagant pumpkin bread pudding that everybody loves.  You could leave out the butter and use a 12-oz. can of evaporated milk in place of cream.

Skillet Lasagna with Shredded Zucchini

Tips and Comments
This recipe is a good way to use zucchini or other summer squash when your plants are producing more than you expected. Shredding the zucchini makes this dish palatable to most people who don't like zucchini because of its texture. (You can only eat so much zucchini bread, another favorite recipe for "sneaking in" some zucchini). And the strong flavors of a tomato-based spaghetti sauce mask the flavor of even the darkest green zucchinis, with the overall effect of making the sauce taste milder.

Some of the extra moisture released from the squash is absorbed by the no-boil lasagna noodles as they cook. If you're too rushed to make lasagna, you can add a little shredded zucchini to almost any chunky pasta sauce. Or use part zucchini and part shredded carrots (for a slightly sweeter taste).

Yellow zucchini or straighneck squash looks especially nice in this recipe. It would also work with steamed and flaked-out strands of spaghetti squash. I prefer immature spaghetti squashes (when the rind can still be easily pierced by a fingernail) to ripe ones when serving with a tomato-based sauces. Even if you like ripe spaghetti squash, there are always a few fruits which don't mature to the hard-rind stage by the end of the season. This would be one good way to use them.

The recipe below makes a lot of lasagna.  If you wanted to halve the recipe, a 9 x 9 inch baking pan or skillet would allow you to use one sheet of noodles per layer of the Ondine noodles.   There are also "no boil" lasagna noodles which look more like the traditional ones, which might be more convenient for this recipe. Or see the 2-layer variation (using only 2 pounds of cottage cheese) at the end of the recipe. It cooks in about 25 minutes after layering the prepared ingredients. It's the one I usually make now.

You could also bake the recipe below in the oven (try 20 minutes at 350 degrees before topping with cheese, or estimate baking time from a recipe on the package of your no-boil lasagna noodles), but it's too hot here to bake right now, so I made it in a big (12 x 16 inch) non-stick electric skillet. I used "no boil" lasagna noodles which came in thin, corrugated sheets, about 8 x 8 inches. I broke them to fit the skillet.  The Ondine brand noodles came with a recipe for vegetable lasagna, with no tomatoes, on the package.  It includes only vegetables, oil, a little cheese, and chicken broth.  The translation wasn't perfect, and I haven't tried it yet.

Ingredients
Vegetable or olive oil
1 large onion, chopped (leave out if kids hate onions)
1 pound very lean ground beef or turkey (optional)
5 to 7 cups coarsely shredded zucchini or other summer squash (remove seeds from really big squashes)
Salt to taste (about 3/4 teaspoon, less if spaghetti sauce or cheese are quite salty)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 large jar (32 ounces) spaghetti sauce

3 pounds (5 1/2 or 6 cups) cottage cheese *
1/4 cup minced fresh scallions or sweet onion
3 to 5 oz. Parmesan or Romano cheese, finely grated
3/4 pound to 1 pound part-skim Mozzarella cheese, grated
No-boil lasagna noodles

Directions
Saute chopped onion in a little oil in the skillet in which you will prepare the lasagna. When onions are translucent and have begun to brown (or caramelize them if you like), add the meat, breaking it up as it cooks. When about half the pink has disappeared from the meat, add the zucchini, salt and pepper and stir into the meat. Cover and allow to cook until the meat is no longer pink and the squash starts to turn translucent .

Adding the zucchini while the meat is partially pink should result in meat which is more tender. If you want the shredded squash to retain more texture in the finished lasagna, add the spaghetti sauce as soon as you add the squash.

Reserve about 1 1/2 cups of spaghetti sauce (to spread over the bottom of the skillet) and mix the remainder into the squash mixture. Allow to simmer for a few minutes, covered. Meanwhile, mix the minced sweet onion or scallions into the cottage cheese, along with 1/2 to 2/3 of the grated Parmesan or Romano cheese.

Spoon squash mixture into a large bowl. Spread reserved spaghetti sauce evenly over the bottom of the skillet. Add a little water to reduce to the consistency of common canned tomato sauce, if necessary.

Place one layer of lasagna noodles over the spaghetti sauce, breaking pieces to fit as necessary. Leave about 1/2 inch between the noodles and around the edges of the skillet.

Working quickly, spoon half of the cottage cheese mixture over the noodles and spread fairly evenly. Sprinkle with about 1/4 of the Mozzarella cheese. Dot with about 1/4 of the squash mixture, and spread it over the cheese layer.

Add a second layer of noodles, perpendicular to the direction you used for the last layer (more or less - don't be too concerned about precision). Working quickly, spread the remaining cottage cheese mixture over the noodles, followed by 1/4 of the Mozzarella cheese and 1/4 of the squash mixture.

Top with another layer of noodles, according to the directions above. Dot with the remaining 1/2 of the squash mixture and spread the mixture to cover all of the noodles.

Cover tightly and simmer (you want some bubbles reaching the top, but not vigorous bubbling) for about 40 minutes, until noodles are cooked through when you test a piece. Mix the remaining Mozzarella and Parmesan or Romano cheeses and sprinkle evenly over the lasagna. Cover and cook for another 5 minutes. (If baking in the oven, do not cover after adding the last layer of cheese). Turn off heat to the skillet but leave it covered, allowing lasagna to rest for 10 minutes. Or remove from oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Serve.

* 2-LAYER VARIATION:  I later made this recipe using 2 pounds of cottage cheese and only 2 layers of noodles, leaving the rest of the ingredients about the same.    I reserved plenty of sauce/squash mixture to go over the cottage cheese layer which topped the second layer of noodles.  It cooked faster with only 2 pounds of cottage cheese - in 25 minutes.  I still let it rest, covered, with the heat off, for 10 minutes. The time necessary to cook the noodles may vary with the brand of no-boil lasagna.

Allergy Information: We have a friend who is allergic to squash. Some people with a latex allergy have a cross-allergy to squash or to some other foods, especially certain immature fruits (like summer squash). Some varieties of Classico Spaghetti Sauce contain no corn products.

Oxhearts and Others - More Tomatoes

We're starting to get substantial numbers of tomatoes now.  Lots of Fourth of July, Early Challenge and First Lady fruits.  We've had several Cosmonaut Volkov fruits and some tomatoes which are labeled "Aunt Ginny's Purple", from a second plant which may have been a victim of the "toddler label mix-up" event. They're a tender, meaty heirloom type, but not "purple" or pink.   Lots of perfect-looking, egg-shaped Barbara fruits, too.   We hit the jackpot with several Pink Oxheart fruits today.  One is pictured below with several other varieties:

At 12 o'clock is our first little Royal Hillbilly.  The fruit of this variety is usually larger, according to the description.  Next to it going clockwise is a small Momotaro, a pink market tomato from Japan.  Then a Marianna's Peace, looking more like an oxheart than it should.  Then our first Goose Creek, a little bit over-ripe, with cracks at the stem end.  You can't see the little white speckles which are sometimes noted on this variety in the photo, but they're there.  Next to Goose Creek are three dusky Nyagous, slightly darker in hue than the big, boat-shaped JD's Special-C Tex   in the center of the platter. The green on the shoulders is characteristic of many of the "purple" or  "black" tomatoes when ripe.  Two of the Nyagous fruits are likely over-ripe.

At six o'clock are two Moskvich fruits, then one of the Oxheart Pink fruits.  The ones I picked today were variable is size and shape.  Not all of them looked this much like a heart.  The comes a Ponderosa Pink with some green on the shoulder and a little cracking, and finally a big double heart - Anna Russian.  There was also a HUGE double Anna Maria's heart that got stuck in the fencing where two layers overlapped.  The second time for this variety.  We'll have to find a better one to photograph.

We're still getting a lot of squash, too.  And a lot of squash bugs.  I had to pull up two plants of Saffron Prolific crookneck this week due to disease.  Zucchini plants generally last longer than crooknecks and straightnecks in our yard.  And some of F's volunteers.   Our 107 degree day was hard on the beans.  Haven't had any edible ones since.  Still getting a few Summer Dance cucumbers.

Squash Report, June 2010

Once squash plants start to produce, they tend to keep producing quickly, until they "run out of steam" from producing so much fruit so fast. The colander above features my favorits variety, "Magda", a Lebanese or "Cousa" type light, club-shaped zucchini from France, plus several yellow squashes: Saffron Prolific - a shallow crook-neck, Butterstick - merging from straightneck to yellow zucchini, and Cougar - disease-resistant. Plus the zucchinis Kojac (few spines on plants) and Diplomat - a dark green variety. I don't seem to have any surviving Sweet Zuke, a club-shaped dark green zucchini from Burpee which often breaks when you pick it.

The yellow squash with the green end is from one of F's volunteer plants - looks like a child of Magda and Zephyr, a remarkable summer squash with some winter squash in its breeding. Your chances of getting squash of quality comparable to the parent plants from seeds taken from a mixed planting of summer squash are not good. Especially when you started with F1 hybrids. The F2 generation often produces some oddities. The bicolor squash in the photo, for example, has a larger seed cavity than its probable F1 parents. The doesn't mean you couldn't get something nice from deliberately crossing two open-pollinated varieties to get your own F1 hybrid.

I used most of the squash in this colander, plus some already in the house, to make two big skillets full of variations on this recipe. One included a diced Ancho (Poblano) pepper, ground red pepper and Pepper Jack cheese. The other included bacon and was topped with Colby/Jack cheese. I think I like a medium or sharp cheddar better than Colby/Jack for this recipe, but you can vary ingredients to taste.

Below is the row of squash we planted. Some of F's volunteers (not pictured) are already turning yellow and sickly, and are ready to be removed from the garden. They're scattered in odd places. He also planted winter squashes of unknown parentage. Good hosts for next year's crop of squash bugs. He seems devoted to growing them, though. Gives them to friends in the fall.

We already have big adult squash bugs mating, plus nymphs. They can get out of hand fast. Grateful we don't have squash vine borers or cucumber beetles.

Okie Squash and Tomatoes

Family Memories
David's Grandma used to fix this dish a lot in the summer, when they ate mostly out of the garden. It is a good way to use bigger summer squashes which are beyond the tender, baby stage which we prize (especially in the case of crooknecks or straightnecks) for more delicate recipes. But if the seeds have started to harden or the skin is tough, you'll have to seed and/or pare the squashes first.

While I was staying with Yvonne's family in Switzerland, her mother prepared sliced kohlrabi with tomato, onion and bacon and froze it for winter.  It tasted something like "Okie squash and tomatoes" with a little cabbage flavor.  I haven't tried freezing the squash, onion and tomato dish (no cheese until serving time), but I bet it would work. 

David's Mom currently prefers to make this dish with bacon - no cheese - using fresh tomatoes.  Jana recently did a layered variation using spaghetti sauce and roast beef.  Vary at will.  

Basic Ingredients
Squash to fill a 10 to 12 inch covered skillet (or a big electric skillet for a larger batch)
One medium onion (10-inch skillet), more for a larger skillet
Salt to taste
Fresh tomatoes, tomato sauce or diced or stewed canned tomatoes
Ground red or black pepper to taste

Optional Ingredients
• Bacon, fried until crisp, or diced ham
• Diced Ancho, Pasilla or other mild, fresh chiles, to taste.
• Roasted Jalapeno or other hot chiles to taste
• Italian or other seasoning to taste
• Cheese - cheddar, pepper jack, cheddar plus mozzarella, parmesan plus mozzarella, Swiss. Pair the type of cheese you use with the ingredients you add (pepper jack with fresh chiles, cheddar or Swiss with bacon, Italian cheeses with Italian spices, etc.)

Directions
Heat a large covered skillet over medium heat. Add some vegetable or olive oil (or bacon grease for authenticity) to lightly coat the skillet. If you plan to add bacon, fry the bacon first, drain away most of the fat and cook the onions in the same pan. Quarter and slice an onion into the oil or bacon fat and sautee until it starts to become translucent. You can continue to sautee gently until the onion caramelizes if you like.

Cut washed and trimmed summer squash into slices, about 1/2 inch, and cut into quarters if squashes are large. I like to use at least part zucchini for this dish - green or yellow. Pattypans and straightnecks or crooknecks also work. Start with the largest, firmest squash. Place in the skillet with the onion and sprinkle with a little salt to draw out some liquid. Cover while preparing additional squashes. Continue adding squash with salt and pepper to taste until you have a skilletful, or as much as you want. Cover, stir occasionally until the flesh of the squash starts to lose its white color, If you add tomatoes too soon, the squash may squeak on your teeth when you eat it.

Add a few peeled, diced tomatoes and/or a small can (about 8 oz.) of tomato sauce. For a big electric skillet full of squash, you can use a can (about 15 ounces) of stewed tomatoes, diced tomatoes or tomatoes with Mexican or Italian seasonings. Add a little tomato sauce if you want the liquid to be thicker. Or use two cans of tomato sauce. Stir and simmer until raw tomatoes are done or until canned tomatoes are heated through.

Adjust seasoning. If you like, add some crumbled bacon or diced ham. You can also top it with cheddar cheese, a little Parmesan or other cheese of your choice.   Cover skillet until cheese melts.

We usually skip the meat and top the squash with cheese. You may want to serve this dish in bowls if you make it with tomatoes rather than tomato sauce, because it will have considerable liquid. If you make it with tomato sauce, it's less invasive on a plate with other foods.

Nice for dinner, maybe with some Pinto beans for a real Okie experience.  Also great for breakfast with buttered toast. Reminds me of my Grandma's stewed tomato, toast and cheese breakfasts on the farm. For a fancier presentation, spoon into individual oven-proof ramekins or casseroles, top with cheese and buttered bread or cracker crumbs and run under the broiler. If the weather's not too hot to turn on the oven.

For a Potluck
With a big electric skillet, you can feed a lot of people. Just increase the amounts of ingredients and use a bigger onion, or two onions.  This recipe and Spanish Green Beans (below) are very popular at potlucks.  You can make the bean dish in winter, when fresh squash is hard to come by.

Other Recommendations
You could also use Lagenaria gourds in this recipe - pared and seeded if large. These Italian gourds have some advantages over squash in the garden - they have no spines on their stems, have velvety leaves and are less susceptible to common squash diseases and pests. They are vining, and would be dramatic on an overhead trellis with the long fruits hanging down. One year I planted them with Trombocino summer squashes (also useful in the recipe above). These vining summer squashes are related to butternuts (C. moschata) and the plants are also free from spines. They tend to continue producing fruits after common summer squashes have given up. Their flavor and texture is different from the more common C. pepo summer squashes.

If you like this recipe, you might like another Okie dish, okra with onions and stewed tomatoes, or this recipe for "Spanish" Green Beans.