One of my money saving strategies for September has been to supplement my grocery lists with free produce that I find around the neighborhood. While I don’t have any trouble finding uses for wild grapes, wild apples, and plums, it’s dealing with all that free yellow summer squash that has me baffled.
For the past 10 days, our family has been eating yellow squash grilled on the barbecue, pan fried with onions, steamed with butter and basil, or seasoned with garlic salt and broiled in the oven. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with other ways to use up lots of yellow summer squash. Here’s two squash dishes that my family enjoyed this week.
Crock Pot pork medallions with stewed tomatoes and squash.
Small pork boneless picnic roasts have been a bargain in the supermarket lately, priced at $1.88 a pound. Instead of cooking up these roasts the traditional way, I turned them into 3″ medallions by slicing the uncooked pork sideways.
Ingredients:
pork medallions
1 T. olive oil
one can Mexican stewed tomatoes
one chopped red pepper
one chopped onion
one yellow crookneck or zucchini squash, thinly sliced.
Pan fry pork medallions in olive oil until lightly browned on both side.
Place medallions in bottom of Crock Pot.
Top with pepper, onions, and squash. Pour canned tomatoes over all.
Set Crock Pot to low and stew 6 hours.
Hungarian goulash with squash
Goulash is a stew made with meat and vegetables, and seasoned with paprika and other spices. This tasty stew is usually served with potatoes or macaroni noodles, however I served it on a bed of steamed squash which my family loved.
Ingredients:
1/4 c. olive oil
3 lbs beef chuck
4 onions, chopped
small can tomato paste
2 T chopped parsley
2 tsp salt
1 tsp dried thyme
2 T paprika
dash pepper.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Heat oil in a 6 qt kettle. Cut chuck into cubes and sear in hot oil until lightly browned on all sides. Remove from heat.
Add chopped onion to pan drippings, saute until lightly brown. Return meat to kettle. Add remaining ingredients and bring kettle to boiling.
Remove from burner, cover, and place in oven to bake for 2 hours.
Serve on top of steamed, cubed yellow squash for a low cal noodle substitute.
Other uses for yellow summer squash
These recipes are just two examples of how squash can be used. Other ways to get rid of lots of squash include these ideas:
Shredded and added to soups, stews, chili dishes, and spaghetti sauce
As a substitute for lasagna noodles
In your favorite zucchini quick bread recipes
Grated and added to meatloaf.
Can’t use up all that squash before it goes bad? Surplus squash can be shredded, sealed in Ziploc bags, and thrown in the freezer for another time. While squash does turn to mush as it thaws, the liquid and pulp can be added to soups and stews for an extra boost of nutrition.