Again with the summer squash. I never knew it was possible to eat so much zucchini, and still enjoy it. Thanks to one impulse purchase at the greenmarket plus three generous weeks with the Park Slope CSA, I can’t seem to eat the stuff fast enough. Quiches and stews or sautes seem to be my go to for using veggies fast. A combination of veggies and greens cooked down for maximum taste and nutrition. But with so much squash, I decided it was time to take on a single flavor CSA dish.
The last few weeks I’ve been inundated with summer squash. I made the mistake of picking some up at the Greenmarket a few weeks back, knowing I had a CSA share to pick up just a few days later. It just looked so good. I grilled some and figured I’d go though the rest in no time. Apparently not. Thanks to some schedule swapping to accommodate our trip later in the fall, I just picked up 3 straight weeks of CSA shares, all chock full of squash. I love the stuff but this is getting a bit absurd. Over the past few weeks I’ve gotten pretty creative, as you’ll see in some upcoming posts.
This simple meal has comforted me in both kitchens home and away. When my friend and I backpacked through Europe after college (wow, almost a decade ago…) it because a staple of our diet anytime we had access to a kitchen, whether it was the communal “kitchen” of a hostel or our own apartment for the week. It was a dish that made us feel normal. For a few moments, we weren’t dirty travelers living our of our backpacks for the next 10 weeks, having picnics of bread, fruit and cheese from the local Aldi and saving up for real restaurant dinners when we could (not that it wasn’t great!). But it was the moments when we had access to a kitchen that were magical. When we could pretend that we weren’t moving every few days, but grounded, just for a few days. We dined on pasta, salads, soups and occasionally some chicken or beef. The meals were always simple as we had a limited pantry to work with, but somehow the zucchini over pasta was always a favorite.
Brooklyn Locavore 