Tag Archives: summer squash

Summer Squash: Ways to Use & Preserve It

July 13, 2021 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

Summer squash plants are incredibly productive. New and seasoned gardeners alike often grow much more than their families can use.

When you feel like you’re drowning in fresh produce, it’s easy to let some go or toss it in the compost bin, but there are other options. Here are a few ways we recommend to use up a large harvest of summer squash.

Donate your excess.

Home gardeners may get tired of summer squash, but fresh produce can be a luxury for others. If you have extra summer squash (or any other vegetable), we recommend donating some to your local food bank. Here are some resources you can use to find a food bank near you:

Ferment it.

Fermenting is an easy, safe way to preserve food. There’s no need to stand over a hot canner all day! Fermented foods are also full of helpful bacteria that are great for gut health. Check out this recipe for Lacto-Fermented Summer Squash from Cultures for Health.

Dry it.

If you’ve got a dehydrator, you can quickly dry large amounts of summer squash. It’s excellent sliced into thin strips and salted for a crunchy, potato chip-like snack. It and also be shredded or chopped and dried for use this winter in soups, stews, and baked goods.

Prepare your squash as desired and lay it out on a dehydrator tray in a single layer. Then lightly salt your squash. Note: thicker pieces of squash will take much longer to dry.

Dry your squash at 130-140°F until your squash is completely dry and brittle. Store in an airtight container until you’re ready to use.

Alternatively, squash can be sliced into rings, hung, and dried over an open fire or woodstove.

To use in cooked dishes, add it to your recipe with a bit of liquid for the last few minutes of cooking. To use shredded squash in baked goods, cover it with warm water for about 5 minutes before adding to your mix.

Freeze it.

Like dehydrated squash, frozen squash is perfect for winter use in soups, stews, and baked goods. The first step is to shred or cube your fresh squash.

Blanching

To ensure it doesn’t get mushy, you need to blanch your squash before freezing. Place your squash in boiling water for exactly 1 minute. Then remove your squash with a slotted spoon and place it in ice water for one minute to immediately stop the cooking. Drain your squash on a clean towel.

Flash Freeze

To keep your squash from freezing into one solid clump, you can use a technique called flash freezing; this works best with the squash cubes or chunks. Spread your drained squash onto a cookie sheet with parchment paper and freeze for at least one hour before transferring to a container.

Alternatively, you can measure squash out for your favorite recipes ahead of time; this works best with shredded squash for baked goods and sauces.

Frozen squash will last up to 10 months.

Can it.

Canning summer squash can be tricky because it is a low-acid food. Ball canning no longer has recipes for canning it on their website or in their book. However, some people still do by pressure canning or adding acidic ingredients.

Pressure Canned Squash

If you’ve got a pressure canner, you can put up plain summer squash as you would many other vegetables. You can find a recipe here.

Pickled Summer Squash

Pickling summer squash is relatively easy and a lot like pickling cucumbers. Just make sure you follow the recipe.

Pineapple Squash

One of my favorite ways to preserve summer squash and zucchini is to make “pineapple squash.” Basically, you can your squash in pineapple juice, and the mild-flavored squash takes on the pineapple flavor. I love it for pizza and sweet and sour stir-fries.

You can find a recipe here.

Recipes

There are so many ways to use fresh summer squash, and thanks to the internet, we now get to see so many creative recipes. Here are a few we thought you all might enjoy.

Garden Advice

7 Crops You Can Plant in July

June 30, 2021 Jordan Charbonneau Leave a comment

Spring and summer always seem to go so fast. There’s so much to get done in the garden. We’re headed into July, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t still get some plants in. Here are a few summer crops you can sow this month.

Beans

Beans are a productive, quick-growing crop that’s perfect for sowing late in the season. You’ll need to water them thoroughly, especially as they get established, but they tolerate the midsummer heat with no problems.

For late sowings, some of our favorites are bush snap beans like Provider, Royalty Purple Pod, Contender (Buff Valentine), and Blue Lake Bush (Blue Lake 274). These varieties are all ready to harvest in 48 to 55 days.

Collards

The classic hot weather green, collards can be sowed right through summer. During the summer, they’re lovely shredded and added to stir-fries, salads, and slaws or blended into smoothies. As the weather cools in the fall, you can add them to soups and chili. They can also be fermented to make kraut or kimchi.

Some of our favorite varieties for summer planting include Georgia Green (Georgia Southern, Creole) Collards, Green Glaze Collards, Whaley’s Favorite Cabbage Collards, and Vates Collards. They’re ready to harvest in as little as 68 days.

Corn

Corn thrives during the summer heat. It’s an excellent crop for succession planting to spread out your harvest. When selecting a variety, check the days to harvest to ensure that you choose a variety that will mature before your area’s first frost date.

A few quick maturing varieties include Buhl Sweet Corn (81 days), Chires Baby Sweet Corn (75 days), Country Gentleman Sweet Corn (93 days), and Bodacious RM (75 days) which is one of the few hybrid corn varieties we carry.

You may notice a few dent corn varieties, such as Reid’s Yellow Dent Corn, have two maturity dates listed. The first date is for roasting, and the second is for grinding and drying. If you’re interested in roasting, Reid’s (85/110 days), Hickory King (85/110 days), and Hickory Cane (85/110 days) are options.

Cucumbers

Both pickling and slicing cucumbers are dependable summer crops. They can be sown in July and tolerate the heat well as long as they’re watered consistently.

Some of our favorite options for pickling cucumbers include Arkansas Little Leaf (59 days) and Homemade Pickles (55 days). They’re both vigorous, productive, and disease resistant.

If you’re want to sow slicing cucumbers, this July some of our favorites include White Wonder (58 days), which is very productive in hot weather, and Marketmore 76 (57 days) and Straight Eight (57 days), which are very dependable and productive.

Southern Peas

Southern peas are also called cowpeas, crowder peas, field peas, or black-eyed peas. They’re an incredibly productive staple crop that can be grown when both days and nights are warm for a period of 60-90 days.

They’re drought-resistant and do well in warm soil. We still have some varieties available. However, the pandemic seed orders sales surge has especially affected our inventory for southern peas. New seed crops are being grown out – we’ll have more seed available again in Nov/Dec 2021!

Summer Squash and Zucchini

Summer squash and zucchini thrive in the summer heat. They’re quick to mature and are ready to harvest in between 48 and 68 days.

Some of the varieties we recommend include Black Beauty Zucchini (48 days), Early Prolific Straightneck Summer Squash (48 days), Benning’s Green Tint Summer Squash (52 days). They’re vigorous and productive.

Swiss Chard

Many greens don’t stand up to the summer heat, but Swiss chard will produce all summer and into fall. They can be harvested in as little as 25 days for baby greens or 50 to 60 days for mature leaves.

Perpetual Spinach (Leaf Beet Chard) is a great hot weather substitute for spinach in the southeast. Rainbow Swiss chard is a great way to add both beauty and flavor to the garden. Barese is sweeter than other chard varieties.

Add a few of these to your garden this July for delicious late summer and fall harvests.

Garden Advice

Squash Souffle, 2 styles

November 3, 2016 Irena Leave a comment

Have you ever wondered what to do with winter squash that still haven’t gotten completely ripe when frost hits? Seed grower and heirloom advocate Rodger Winn told us about a family recipe for squash souffle while we visited his farm one summer.

It starts with intermediate-maturity squash.

Most squash recipes call for either winter squash, which are harvested at full seed maturity, or summer squash, which are harvested when the seeds are just beginning to develop. Most squash varieties that are bred for use as summer squash, if allowed to get to the stage of seed maturity, will be unappetizing. However, most squash that are bred to be winter squash, if you harvest them when the seeds are just beginning to mature, are a wonderful substitute for regular summer squash. They’re also quite tasty in-between.

When your squash plants are on their last leg and many of the leaves have died, it’s not hard to find a squash that’s still immature; they’re just easy to see. And, when your first fall frost is around the corner and you’re doing your annual winter squash harvest, you’re bound to find a few immature fruits along with the mature ones. If the peel is tough, you’ll need to peel them. If the seeds are tough, you’ll need to scoop them out. (The seeds are likely to be tough unless the squash is just barely past the summer squash stage, but, depending on the variety, the skin might remain tender much longer.)

Irena’s Squash Souffle

I really liked the sound of Rodger’s recipe, but I didn’t remember the details, and I often don’t have the patience to measure ingredients. Here’s how I made a squash souffle that my housemates and I really enjoyed.

First, I cut an intermediate-stage Mrs. Amerson’s squash into big chunks. Mrs. Amerson’s is a moschata type, and I’m pretty confident that other squash in the moschata species, such as Seminole and Butternut, would produce very similar results.

I removed the seeds and the parts of the peel that were tough. I sliced the squash thinly. It wouldn’t all fit in one frying pan, so I put it in two. Those frying pans mostly gets used for savory dishes, but I didn’t worry about how their seasoning would affect this dish.

I let the squash cook a bit, stirring occasionally, while I beat about 10 eggs, then mixed them with about 5 cups of milk and about 2 cups of evaporated cane juice (i.e., sugar, but not as processed as most white or brown sugars). I poured the mixture over the squash, sprinkled it with nutmeg, covered it, and cooked on low heat until the surface was solid.

I enjoy strong flavors, so the next morning as I was enjoying my squash souffle for the second time, I picked some Anise-Hyssop and Mexican Mint Marigold from the garden to eat with it.

Then, I decided to write this post, so I asked Rodger for the family recipe. If you want to cook from a recipe, this is probably the one to use.

For Rodger’s South Carolina family, this is a Thanksgiving recipe. They tend to get their first frost in early November. Intermediate-maturity squash will keep just fine for a couple of weeks, and sometimes much longer, but won’t keep until spring.

Winn Family Squash Souffle

We use pumpkins that are almost mature but still have a green rind. If they are too immature the pie will be mushy. Cut the squash lengthwise in 1 in strips and peel. Then slice very thin, about 1/8 in. Layer the slices in a pre baked pie crust till filled. For the custard use 1 or 1 1/2 cups white sugar or unrefined sugar, 2 cups milk, a tsp. of vanilla extract, and 3 eggs. Mix well. This is enough custard for two shallow pies, or one deep dish with a little left over. Then bake at 375 degrees until set (about 45min to 1hr). Enjoy.

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange