More Super Squash!

These two tromboncino were ripe last weekend. Although not quite as big as the 3 footer from my last post, they were still pretty huge!

Just these two were enough to make squash carpaccio, cream of squash soup, and "crab" cakes.

Unfortunately, there was a boo-boo that ruined the "crab" cakes. I started this recipe by grating the squash and heavily salting it, then letting it drain. Later on, my husband continued it - made it into patties and sauteed them. Then after all that, he tasted one - and said "Ugh! These are really salty!" So I said, "Oh no - did you rinse the salt off?" Whoops, no he didn't.

The good news is, I picked another two squash yesterday. So we're making more bread and "crab" cakes take two tonight. I'll put those pictures up eventually, but for now here is the other two dishes we made last weekend. Unfortunately both of these pictures had to be adjusted since it was nighttime and the light in my kitchen is so bad. But hopefully they are good enough so you get the idea until I can get better equipment.

This was the Carpaccio of Raw Zucchini - based on a recipe by Tyler Florence. The only differences were I didn't have chervil or dill, so the herbs were chives, thyme and mint. Then I used a sweet italian pepper almond chreeze instead of ricotta that my partner made. This is the chreeze recipe - except instead of a hot cubanelle, he used italian frying peppers from the garden. I also used less leeks than Tyler's recipe called for - I didn't want to overpower it with onion.

I made this recipe to play along with Food Network Fridays over at Vegan Appetite. I really like Tami's blog. Right now she's having a contest to win a copy of Love Soup by Anna Thomas. Check it out here.
Here's the cream of squash soup. Really it was like cream of squash/potato/leek soup because I put a lot of potatoes and leeks in there too. I used this vegweb recipe as a base, but played with it quite a bit. First I sauteed 2 leeks, 3 celery stalks, 3 garlic cloves, 2 jalapenos & 2 fresh bay leaves in 4 tsp olive oil. Then I added about 5-6 cups steamed squash, 2 steamed potatoes, 4 cups broth, 1 cup soy creamer, 1 pack soft silken tofu, and 2 cups water and pureed it all with an immersion blender. It was a bit too liquidy so I added another steamed potato (luckily I had cooked extra). That really did the trick. Finally I added chopped fresh chives, thyme + s&p at the end. It was super creamy and had just the right amount of kick from the jalapenos. Delicious! My husband ate it up, and he doesn't even like squash. The leftovers were even better.