Have you ever found yourself wondering what to do with summer squash? You know the type – pale yellow, crooked neck?
The problem with summer squash, from a raw diet perspective, is that the entire center of the squash is filled with seeds. So you can’t easily spiral slice it for noodles, and it seems like other than slicing it into rounds or matchsticks, there’s not a whole lot you can do with it.
Wrong!
You can make stuffed summer squash!
It turns out that if you slice a summer squash in half, length-wise, and cut off the crook neck (reserve the neck to make yummy, refreshing marinated squash rounds!), you can scoop out the seed section, and have perfect little “boats” to fill with stuffing and let cure in your dehydrator!
Now, I just created this recipe last night, so you should feel free to riff on it as you see fit (and let me know!)
Annie’s Stuffed Summer Squash
4-6 pale yellow summer squash
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup quinoa (uncooked)
1/4 cup raisins
equal parts olive oil and nama shoyu or soy sauce
Mix the sunflower seeds, quinoa, and raisins, and put in a bowl, covering well with water (I use filtered water). Let soak for about 2 hours.
In the meantime, cut the neck off each squash, at the base of the neck (reserve for Marinated Summer Squash Rounds). Also cut the bottom tip of the squash off.
Split each squash in half, lengthwise, and with the tip of a small spoon carefully scoop out the center core of seeds. You will now have perfectly formed, seedless “boats” in which to place your filling.
Mix the equal parts olive oil and nama shoyu or soy sauce – enough to coat each piece of squash all over – in a bowl. Let the squash soak in it a bit, and then place the squash pieces on a Teflex-lined dehydrator sheet, cut side up.
When the 2 hours’ soaking period is up, grind the sunflower seeds, quinua and raisins in your food processor to a stuffing-like consistency.
Now here is where you get creative. I felt at this point that the stuffing lacked a little something. So I added a little of this, and a little of that, and at one point it all came together for me and was perfect. But what works for me in terms of ‘best flavour’ may not work for you.
What I added to my stuffing was:
A couple of dehydrator sauteed mushrooms, some fresh sage, and some poultry seasoning herbs that I happened to have laying around.
Once you have the stuffing exactly as you want it, fill the squash boats, and put them in your dehydrator at 110-115. Let them cure until the squash is nice and soft – but not too soft. Go for al dente, or a slight bit softer. For me this took about 6 hours, but it will take more or less time depending on your dehydrator, the thickness of the squash, and how long you’ve soaked the squash first.
That’s it!
These will keep fairly well in the fridge for a few days if covered with plastic wrap, but do bring them to room temperature before serving, or warm them slightly using the oven pilot light warming method.
Gosh this sounds tasty, but complicated. Where the heck do you find a dehydrator? What’s teflex? Though I guess I can find out elsewhere on this site, neither of these questions is answered here. So I won’t be fixing this recipe like right away, but thanks anyway.
Thank you so much for the Summer Squash Recipe. I live in Chicago, where the winters are colder than Alaska, at times. So, the warming technique for my oven and using the dehydrator, which I do have, were invaluable to me to prepare “warming” foods during our rather harsh Winters.
Aunt Minis Honey Lemonade Recipe: 1/2 gallon warm water, 1/2 cup honey, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice. Just mix it all with your hands (their warmth will disolve the honey and sugar) and pour mixture into a gallon container filled 3/4 with ice. I like to use wild honey from the local food coop…it has a unique spicey flavor.