If you have friends who garden or have access to too much produce, you may be the recipient of their gleanings. Co-workers, acquaintances, neighbors come bearing bags from their bounty.
Thanks to so much rain the bounty is higher than average. The current “drop” involves summer squash. This game works something like tag. The dropper tags you with veggies and you, the dropee, are “it.”
Sometimes the veggies turn up unannounced on your door step. Sometimes they come with a warning on the phone: I’m bringing some squash by.
And there you are with more Crooknecks than you can possibly use for the next six weeks.
I’m no squashaholic, but I’m a sucker for such leavings. I’ll re-gift vegetables before they go to the compost pile. I found a colony of new potatoes in a box on the break room table a few days ago, free for the taking. I invited them to supper on Friday night.
Then two large zucchini turned up on the same break room table. Those gourds went home with me too, to become zucchini relish. But this extended family of Crooknecks was another matter. A few were adopted by the neighbors, but the rest of the offspring languished for days in my refrigerator. Every time I opened the door, there they sat as if to taunt me. Fry us! Bake us! Stew us on the cooktop!
I know yellow squash is versatile. It can extend casseroles, fill out stews, brighten a salad, but there are only two people in my household and our dogs aren't vegetarians. What to do?
My friend Sylvia, the one responsible for two ten-pound squash drops, offers these freezing tips.
- Clean the squash and chop into cubes.
- Spread the cubes evenly on a cookie sheet and place in the freezer until frozen.
- When frozen, place cubes in freezer bags for the deep freeze.
She says they’re great for stewing with a bit of onion or adding to stews and casseroles , especially in cold dreary months when bright-yellow vegetable is more than welcome.
OK, Crooknecks, you’re it.
