I did a little cooking this past weekend. Sunday I took a squash casserole to the potluck at church. I was really taking a chance. This is a very popular southern dish. Apparently as popular at tater tot casserole in Minnesota. So here I was, a YANKEE, making squash casserole.
I'm not sure if there are any squash casserole experts at our church. I didn't know about the dish until we went to the UMW meeting at Lake Junaluska a few weeks ago. While I was exclaiming over the dish, I was told about it's roots in southern cuisine.
The recipe was in a recent edition of Southern Living Magazine. They had a page with two recipes on it. Here is the one I used: Squash Casserole.
One of the things I didn't understand was the part where you actually cook the squash ahead of time for the casserole. They had you slice up 4 lbs of yellow squash and then boil it in water for 8-10 minutes "until tender". Then you drain drain drain and then gently squeeze out more water with paper towels. This seemed sort of silly to me. I think next time I make this dish, I will put the squash in the casserole dish with a splash of water and microwave it. I should get less water out that way and may even be able to avoid some of the squeezing. For the record, this is the second Southern Living recipe I've done where I thought something dumb was happening.
So you get the water out. Then you saute some onion in butter. Put the squash back in the pan with the butter and add a couple eggs, some grated cheese, some mayonnaise, salt and sugar. Top it with Ritz crackers that you've crushed up and moistened with more melted butter(Definitely not low fat. But if you're a vegetarian, you probably aren't terribly concerned). Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
This was where the delay mechanism on my oven really helped out. I made the dish early Sunday morning. Put it in the fridge. Then before church I put it in the oven and set it to come on at 11:20 at 350. Then I popped back to the house during the last hymn and took the casserole out. It was nice and steamy, hot and crispy for the potluck. Terribly convenient living only a mile from the church! The oven in our church kitchen doesn't work. The dish was a smash hit. I warned everyone that it was made by a YANKEE. But they said it was great!
Tomorrow I'll tell you about the dessert I made for the picnic yesterday.
8:12:12 AM 
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