Roasted Yellow Summer Squash—Good Eats at the TEOTWAWKI Café

Dear Readers, it has now been ten months since my freeze dryer broke down.  I won’t say very long months, because during the first six of those months I was occupied with getting Armageddon Pharmacy finished and published.  I infrequently reminded Aaron and KOTPE that the freeze dryer needed fixing.  I suggested that I could hire it out or buy a new one and that generated a brief bustle of activity, but no real progress. 

Becoming more insistent over the past two months has prompted some work on the machine, and there is even a diagnosis now.  Whether it is correct remains to be seen.  At the moment work is stalled because the Harvest Right tech helping my husband seems to have fallen off the planet.  And with Aaron being unemployed at the moment, he’s not taking my suggestions of buying a new freeze dryer seriously.  Imagine that.

Of course, you all understand that this is a very inconvenient time to be without a freeze dryer.  Boatloads of medicinal herbs must be dehydrated instead of freeze-dried.  And I know that’s what has been done throughout history, but I still like the idea of freeze-drying them better.  However, I really don’t want to dehydrate the squash.  I now know the difference between dehydrated and freeze-dried squash and I don’t want to go back to the old school method here. 

I’m also not going to waste the squash.  So until the freeze dryer is fixed, we will be eating squash every single evening for dinner.  (Or Aaron will decide to take over meal prep, as he did on Tuesday with smoking a beef brisket.  I’d call that a win as well.)  We liked the following recipe so much on Wednesday that I’m making it again on Friday.  (Hey, we’ll be having QOTPE and her boyfriend here for dinner—a couple more mouths to feed and a few more squash used up.  Besides it was really good.) 

And so that you can get a little taste of our fun/frustration, however you choose to view it, I’m going to post the best recipe(s) here on Fridays until the freeze dryer is fixed.

Roasted Yellow Summer Squash

(Ingredient amounts are not provided because you can make this dish to serve 1 to 100.  You’ll need about 4-6 squash to fill a cookie sheet, which will serve 4-6 people.)

Yellow summer squash, sliced

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400°F.  Place sliced squash in a plastic bag and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.  Seal the bag closed and shake to coat the squash in oil.  Place the squash in a single layer on a cookie sheet.  Season with salt and pepper.  Top with Parmesan cheese. 

Roast for 12-14 minutes, until the squash is tender.  Transfer the cookie sheet to the top rack of the oven, under the broiler, for 1-2 more minutes, until the cheese is crisp and golden brown.

Family reviews:  Wow, this humble, simple recipe is a definite keeper.  It checks all the boxes:  It utilizes fresh garden produce (I’m guessing freeze-dried squash would also work), it’s food storage friendly, it’s quick and easy—not even any measuring so there are few dirty dishes to wash, and it’s absolutely delicious.  And you know that’s true because KOTPE and QOTPE said so.