Grow Appalachia: And the Summer Squash continues to Produce! : More creative ways to use your yellow squash ~ Pine Mountain, Deb Callahan

The Grow Appalachia gardens of Pine Mountain are doing well, we could use a break from the rain but that’s getting to be old news isn’t it? Last week we held a food preservation workshop that was very successful and informative and this evening we will have our second local foods potluck of the season. For this potluck we ask everyone to bring a dish with ingredients raised, harvested, or collected within 100 miles of the Settlement School. Hopefully we will have an evening of lots of delicious fresh food and good conversation!

The following blog post is written by Deb Callahan, one of our new Grow Appalachia participants (but already an experienced gardener) this year. Deb has a wonderful garden and is always bringing beautiful produce to share with us, now we can all enjoy some of Deb’s recipes and hopefully some of her good food tonight!
-Kathleen Powers

One of Deb's squash plants

I planted a couple hills of summer “crookneck” squash a few years ago. A lot of them went to waste because I was the only squash-eater in my household. This year I was a little more ambitious in my gardening and planted 6 hills of squash. What was I thinking - I am still the only squash-eater in my household!

After giving little yellow “care packages” to some of the neighbors, I found myself wondering what to do with all of this squash. In May, I attended a Grow Appalachia workshop that demonstrated how to roast vegetables, so I thought I would give it a try using squash. I sliced 4 of the smaller squash, an onion, 2 banana peppers, and diced a new potato into a bowl. I drizzled a little oil over it, seasoned with Adobo seasoning, covered with a lid and shook it to coat the vegetables with the oil and seasoning. I baked it in a hot oven (450 degrees) for about 20-30 minutes. YUMMY! I found a new favorite!

An impressive pumpkin in Deb's pumpkin patch

I’ve also found some recipes on the internet for squash bread and it is delicious! (See recipe below)

Summer Squash Bread

Ingredients

3 eggs, beaten

2 cups white sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

2 cups shredded/grated summer squash

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 2 loaf pans.

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the eggs until fluffy. Beat in the sugar, oil, and vanilla. Gradually mix in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Fold in the squash. Transfer to the prepared baking dish.

Bake 45 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

I hope to be able to attend the Local Foods Potluck August 3^rd at Pine Mountain Settlement School. I plan to try out the Squash Cake recipe I found online and maybe take a bowl full of my roasted squash, too!

And just to showcase Deb's wonderful garden produce and cooking, here are pictures of the Chow Chow she recently canned