Gourmet Steading

Zucchini, Beef Liver Jerky, and a Diagnostic Tool

In this transmission we have recipes for summer squash such as zucchini, beef liver jerky tips, and a surprising but effective diagnostic tool.

Zucchini, Yellow Summer Squash, Pattypan Squash

Photo by Melanie Andersen on Unsplash

We recommend these for first time gardeners since they grow so well.  And for experienced gardeners too.  Even the best gardener has that year when they need at least one darn thing that grows.

Seeing this little plant blow up into a leafy heap with yellow flowers and squash all over is great.  The rhythm of sow, grow, then harvest is complete.

That said, eating bad squash or being overwhelmed with too much produce diminishes the reward.  Harvest should feel good.

Partly this is an attitude adjustment.  Getting too much just means you have bounty.

But there are also practical solutions.

Harvest Right

A lot of people eat their zucchini and other squash when it’s too big.  You want it no more than about 2” in diameter and often a bit less than that.  A zucchini that is not a great big whacking grotesque thing makes delicious eating!  Yellow squash the same.  For pattypan, you want to pick them before they get larger than saucer size.

Squash keep pretty well so you can pick them when they are right even if you don’t intend to use them that day or the next.

You know you’ve let them get a bit too large when there is white pithy stuff in the middle.  Don’t eat that stuff.  Scoop it out.  You can still use the rest of the squash and it will still have good flavor although not peak flavor.

(Dark green zucchini are hard to spot buried in the dark green leaves.   For beginners or if you have trouble spotting the squash, you may want to switch to yellow summer squash.  Pattypan are light green and so are in between.  They are harder to spot than yellow squash, easier than zucchini.)

Use what You Harvest

Now its well into summer and you are getting hit with squash.  What to do?

You can store it, or you can do something rewarding with it.  Seed it, cook it tasty or get social reward by sharing it.

Store It

By all means store it if you have room in your freezer.  But squash is extremely high water content and lower in value than meat or fruit or other things you might store.  We don’t recommend storage unless you have plenty of space.  The normal way is to shred your squash in a food processor and then put in freezer bags.  You might also can summer squash, though again the game may not be worth the candle if you have better things to can. You can condense it a lot by boiling it down but that takes awhile.

Save Seeds

If the squash are big enough, you will have formed seeds in the pith.  Scoop out the seeds, let them dry,and then keep them (room temperature should be fine).  They will absolutely grow the next year.  This works a bit better if you are using a non-hybrid variety but even with hybrids there usually isn’t a big drop off in performance with the seeds.

When you and your family grow food from your own seeds, it gives the liberating sense that in one small way you can grow your own food without any dependence at all on the corporation blob.

If you have a lot of old squash, save enough seed to share with your extended family and neighbors.   A packet of seed in the spring is a much more welcome gift than a rock hard pith-filled monstrous zucchini.

Photo by Brando Makes Branding on Unsplash

Share It

So what about sharing the actual squash?

Q.  Why should you lock your car at church?

A.  So someone doesn’t break in and leave a bag of zucchini.

The key thing is to remember that getting rid of your stuff isn’t the point.  The point is to give a nice gift that validates you and your children’s efforts with social reward.  You want to see people smile.  You know your neighbors, best but when in doubt zucchini bread, nice and moist, goes over better than zucchini.  (You can use other summer squash varieties instead of zucchini, it’s hard to tell any difference).

Get your kids together, mix and bake, go door to door, and harvest those smiles and little conversations.

Kids  usually can also sell the bread for another type of rewarding experience.

Eat It

But what about eating?  Overcooked summer squash eaten straight is a mushy mess and easy to get tired of.  Even if you cook it right, let’s introduce you to two family favorite recipes for when eating the squash straight is getting old.

Cream Corgette and Zucchini Curry.

Cream Corgette

Good quality cream is a cooking superpower.  Honestly, low quality cream from Walmart is basically a cooking superpower.  Stuff you cook with it is bound to taste good.

What we do is we slice summer squash, usually a mix of zucchini, yellow, and pattypan, whatever we have on hand.  We fill a 14” casserole dish then we pour a bunch of cream on it.  A pint or more.  Then we bake it for awhile at 350 or whatever floats your boat.  Higher if you are in a hurry.  40 minutes to an hour depending on how soft you like the squash.  You can add spices and garlic to taste.  Sometimes we do.  Usually we don’t.*

NO SEASONING?!?
No seasoning.

The result is incredible.

Is this fattening?  Yes and no.  Downing cream along with a lot of other food will surely fatten you up.  The way we usually do it is we have just a roast and cream corgette, nothing more.  Or fried eggs and cream corgette.  On some occasions, nothing but cream corgette.   You eat until you are full, you get up satisfied, and its not fattening because you aren’t able to down it in vast quantities. 

The pictures here are the leftovers, which we have even with all our hungry mouths because the mouths just got full and stopped eating.  Imagine the little looks of shock and the wide-eyed surprise.  “Mom, I only ate seconds and I’m already full!”  Actually the pictures here are the leftovers after two meals of the stuff.  The first meal was nothing but cream corgette.  The second was a roast, cream corgette, and fresh cucumbers with a smattering of blue cheese.  For a large family both times.  You can’t believe how filling.

* These very imprecise instructions are how I actually cook the stuff.  It’s very forgiving.

Curry Zucchini

We use a processor for this one.  Shred your zucchini or other summer squash, fill your casserole dish, mix in a bit of garlic and onion, bake for 20-30 minutes at 350. 

Meanwhile, sear some beef, or high quality pork or chicken.  (Or low quality pork or chicken, we’ve done it that way before and it tasted good).

When you take the shredded squash out, add some fat to it unless your meat is pretty fatty (a drizzle of cream, or some butter, or some tallow or lard) plus a good deal of curry powder to taste.  Put the meat on top, put it back in the oven.  You can keep it at the same temperature or lower the temperature for a low, slow cook.  It tastes even better if you take longer, but its heaven either way.

Beef Liver Jerky

We like to dry liver at really low temperatures, 105 degrees or less.  Then you can just munch on a piece every couple of days.  We aim for about an ounce a week.

It’s how you Store Nutrition

It tastes . . . all right.  Better than straight cooked liver, which some people like but we cannot stomach.

Beef Liver Jerky is a Diagnostic  Tool

It functions as a great diagnostic tool.  Occasionally you will start to crave the stuff.  That means your body is low on micronutrients.  Then you go have a piece.

In general your body is pretty decent about noticing what’s missing but the way it communicates it isn’t always clear.  If the missing nutrient is associated with something with a strong and distinctive flavor profile, you will get a craving for that thing.

We learned a few years ago that when we get a strong craving for popcorn or corn on the cob, we are low on salt.  Taking some in means the craving almost instantly vanishes.

If you are thinking a lot about juicy stuff or ice cream or a glass of milk, you may just be thirsty.

Your body is a much better diagnostic tool than you give it credit for.  One of us wanted to down raw eggs every day but was having trouble doing it—“I don’t know man, its just slimy and gross.”  He switched from store eggs to home eggs and the problem went away though he’s embarrassed to admit he is not consciously aware of much difference in flavor.

To take full advantage of your body’s ability to self-diagnose, educate your body by eating healthy foods with strong flavor profiles.  Beef liver jerky, offal stew, bone broth, homemade sauerkraut, pickles, canned salmon or mackerel mixed with vinegar, wild caught cod livers . . .  If you have a regular schedule of eating these things because you like them, that’s great.  But you probably don’t need to have a hairshirt approach to it.  Eat them every now and then so your body associates the nutrition with the flavor, and then pay attention to what you crave.  

The advantage of beef liver jerky is that it has a lot of micronutrients, even ones that are not commonly known to nutritional science.  It gives your body a cravings tool that covers a whole spectrum of possible lacks.

The first time your eyes sweep over the bag of liver jerky in the freezer and your body says “WANT that”—that is a trip.

Beef Liver Jerky as Salad Ingredient

We recently were in an experimental mood.  We took out some beef liver jerky and chopped it into little chunks then sprinkled it over a salad.  It was dang good.

After some more experiments here is what we settled on.  We take a handful of beef liver jerky then chop it fine.  A powder is ok but it doesn’t have to be a powder.  It does need to be cut pretty small though.  Ideally the chunks are no more than a millimeter or two wide.  Beef liver jerky is *very* crunchy chewy so anything too large changes up the texture profile of the salad in a startling and not very pleasant way.

The flavor pairs well with peppercini, tomatoes, cheese, egg, cream based dressings or olive oil/vinegar,  as well as less aggressive flavors such as lettuce and cucumber and avocado.  We discovered that for some reason it does not compliment a great deal of olives very well, but your experience may vary.

Tip:  Even if your kids tolerate and eat the beef liver jerky directly, you may not want to make a big announcement about it the first time you put it on the salad.

In general, a number of things you might do just for healthy diet reasons or for household production or homestead reasons can give a lot of your food a gourmet flair.

Homemade sauerkraut on a salad, for example.  Or beef liver jerky cut fine.  It’s good.