Squash

I am a horrible gardener. I even managed to kill my squash and zucchini plants. We have 3 little cucumbers, about 4 inches long, (at the time everyone else is harvesting) and 2 pumpkins, a little bigger than a baseball. The only thing that grows good are my raspberry bushes.

Anyway, in spite of my black thumb, we've been blessed with a good amount of yellow squash and zucchini from friends and family. I've been eating squash just cooked with butter for lunch a lot of days, and made zucchini bread, which everyone but Tyler seems to like. Then the other day I found this recipe for Yellow Squash Casserole. I really, really liked it, Ryan ate it okay with some coaxing, Adam loved it, Tyler and Jeanisha wouldn't even try it. Stephen said it was the best yellow squash he's ever had. But he quickly followed that with "that doesn't mean it's good, it's just the first yellow squash I've ever had that was at least edible." At least he likes the zucchini bread. Adam and I finished off the casserole the next day for lunch-- it reheated good.

So, if you have a plethora of squash, here's a recipe to try. If you like squash you will probably like it. :)

I did add some garlic and extra cheese, probably 3 cups total. I only had one package of crackers, so I substituted grape nut flakes for the portion of crackers that is mixed in with the squash and used the whole package of crushed crackers with cheese on the top. I sliced the squash with the thin slicer blade from the kitchen aid and did not precook it. I did peel it and take the seeds out first too, but with a smaller squash you wouldn't need to.

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)

• 4 cups sliced yellow squash
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 35 buttery round crackers, crushed
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ground black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, mix together cracker crumbs and cheese. Stir half of the cracker mixture into the cooked squash and onions. In a small bowl, mix together eggs and milk, then add to squash mixture. Stir in 1/4 cup melted butter, and season with salt and pepper. Spread into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes, Sprinkle with remaining cracker mixture after about 15 minutes then cook until lightly browned.