Iron Chef New Jersey

Our garden has taken on mutant proportions. We have tons of green tomatoes, basil, and lettuce, but the one item that has been in great abundance is squash. We have zucchini and yellow squash galore!

Lately it's been like an episode of Iron Chef at our house with zucchini and yellow squash as the secret ingredient.

We've had it grilled (which is the go to) but I decided I needed to be a bit more creative with our meals.

So I became Mario Batali (but I have red Crocs) and made...

Squash with shell pasta, walnuts and raisins. The side was thinly sliced cucumber in a rice vinegar, sugar, salt mixture topped with sesame seeds. 

 My next challenge yielded stuffed squash for dinner. This was semi-homemade. Started by halving the squash and clearing the seeds out with a grapefruit spoon (those serrated edges are awesome). I had Nick grill the squash halves for a nice flavor and those lovely grill lines. I saved the seeds part and later sauteed them with some onion and garlic. Then on the side I ground pre-cooked sausage from Trader Joe's (the flavor was spinach and something) in the food processor then combined with seed saute adding pecorino romano cheese, garlic powder and mixing. Then stuff the squash with the mixture and throw into the oven on 375 for about 25 minutes to heat everything through really good.

Today I am making zucchini bread. I actually have it in the oven right now and need to kill an hour before it's ready.