Squash Casserole
Last week’s bounty of homegrown tomatoes are still taking me into next week. The Tomato Pie was devoured in one day. The spaghetti has two remaining portions for this week’s lunch. The last two tomatoes that didn’t go into the pie or pasta were eaten in tomato sandwiches late last week. Smothered in Duke’s Mayonnaise, salt and pepper and placed between fresh white bread, my only regret was that I did not peel the tomatoes first. Oh, well…who out there has more homegrowns for me?
I have been continuing to test Fried Chicken and Biscuits. The progress on these will soon result in published recipes here on the blog. Tonight my friend David Paine will join me for chicken, biscuits, gravy and Grandma Pafford’s Squash Casserole. I also made a batch of Peanut Butter Cornflake Cookies this morning; substituting Rice Krispies for the cornflakes. This morning I experimented with putting the plastic jar of peanut butter in the microwave for approximately one minute on high. I don’t like the idea of wasting anything and I figured since the peanut butter would be heated on the stove, why not heat it in effort to scrape as much as possible from the jar. Doing this seemed to speed up the process for making this substantially.
I’ve had many squash casseroles in my day and I can’t recall a specific way Mama would have made it. I was able to secure some small yellow squash this afternoon at Madison’s Farmers Market at the Amqui Station. I had hoped for some small ones and luckily a farm from Gallatin was on hand to supply. I had the casserole in the oven for 10 minutes before I realized I had forgotten to mix in the pimento. I quickly pulled it from the oven and scattered it on the top and returned it back inside. I think it came out fine.
Here is what I prepared, based on Grandma Pafford’s Squash Casserole recipe:
Squash Casserole
2 lbs. yellow squash, sliced
1 small onion, sliced
¼ cup water
4 oz. sliced pimento, drained
1 egg, beaten
½ cup milk
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
2 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
Preheat oven to 350ºF. In a covered pot, cook squash and onion in ¼ cup water until tender; 5 to 7 minutes or until done, stirring occasionally. In a large mixing bowl, mix squash/onion mixture with pimento, egg, milk, cheese, butter, salt and sugar until well combined. Pour in a 2 quart casserole dish that has been greased or sprayed with non-stick cooking spray and bake for 25 minutes.