Squash Tian

I turned last week’s squash into a Mexican casserole layering steamed squash with corn tortillas and a spicy sauce I had made from tomatoes and peppers. (Did you try Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce recipe from last week? It’s genius! I’m a total convert.)

This week I’m going to try this variation on a recipe from Martha Rose Shulman who writes for the New York Times. I think it ran in 2010. Any rice will do, or you can leave out the rice and substitute more breadcrumbs (adding some to the squash mixture and still sprinkling some on the top). You just need the rice or some other starch to help hold the slices together.

Three Dollar Café Squash Casserole

Because we live in Atlanta, it’s pretty much a requirement that you make at least one squash casserole this summer. This recipe came was published recently in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. You can use any combination of summer squash (they use both crookneck and zucchini at Three Dollar Cafe) and top it with any cheese you like, although they definitely use American at the restaurant. If you don’t have chicken base, you can do without it, but it’s a long-lived pantry (actually – refrigerator) staple that adds a boost of flavor without all the liquid of using chicken stock.

Yogurt-Cucumber Dressing/Dip

I’m sharing two dips, one of which use cucumbers in the recipe. Both would work just as well as a salad dressing, but I was thinking of them as dips for fingers of fennel and kohlrabi, and disks of summer squash and cucumber. Green Goddess Dressing is traditionally made with a mixture of herbs and anchovies, but you can adjust it to suit your household’s taste.