Saturday Morning Chatter (with recipes)

Good Morning everybody!!! The week has really gotten away from me. Its been a really busy one at that. We moved chicks to the chicken house, put up new nesting boxes that my most wonderful father in law made for us, and work fantastically. The eggs roll into little compartments that the chickens can't get to. We need to figure out where our leghorns are laying though, because we know two of them are laying, and that the eggs are indeed getting eaten by an egg eater, who I have identified, and who is going to go into the freezer.  Yesterday ended up being a beautiful day, it rained for most of the morning, and got into the mid 60's. I spent quite a bit of time outside, and talked to my chickens a lot. Sometimes they did indeed give me strange looks, but it was quite worth it.

I had wanted to post a recipe this week, with pictures. I know that pictures make recipe's way more fun, but well, the week got away from me. So, I got out my recipe box, and pulled out 2 really awesome recipes. They are both squash related, because well, that's one of the first things I think about when we plant the garden, is squash. I love finding different recipes, that help me to use up all that squash, so we could eat squash every night, but it wont taste the same.  I still remember the first year we planted a garden. My husband is a Veteran when it comes to garden planting. He grew up with a mother that planted a huge garden growing up. Well, I knew that I liked squash, because somebody was always giving it away while I was growing up. (Little did I know why) So, my husband says to me, how many squash and how many zucchini do you want to plant, I think about it a minute, and I say, oh I think about 6 of each should be enough to get us through the summer...he got this look on his face that I didn't understand at first, and then he kind of grinned, he said are you sure you want to plant that many???Oh, of course I do, we can give a few to my parents if we get a couple of extra...well..he did indeed go along with me on that.  That summer, I was able to give more than just a few to my parents, and I was even able to take some into work to "share" (aka get rid of)
Last summer we planted our usual amount, which is 4 each. We dehydrate a lot of it to put in soups and such in the winter time, unfortunately last summer was so dry, that the deer killed our plants eating them. I have high hopes for this summers garden though.

Alright, off of the reminiscing, and onto the recipes. The first recipe I'm going to share with you guys is Superb Squash Bread...(or Zucchini bread). A staple in anybody's recipe box who grows the stuff.

Superb Squash (Zucchini) Bread
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup cooking oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups squash (zucchini), finely grated
3 cups self rising flour
1 tbsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Blend eggs in a large bowl on med. speed, until fluffy. Mix in sugar, oil and vanilla. Slowly stir in flower and cinnamon until just mixed. Stir in squash until evenly mixed. Pour into a well greased 9 x 13 inch baking dish, or two well greased loaf pans. Bake for 45 minutes, or until bread is firm and light brown. The loaf pans add about 10 minutes to baking time.

Up next is Sausage Stuffed Squash. This doesn't use regular Squash or Zucchini, because there are many more kinds of squash than just those as we know. This recipe uses acorn squash. This recipe is only for 1 squash cut in half, so your going to have to multiply it for however many you want to fix. Its quite yummy though, and well worth it.

Sausage Stuffed Squash
1 med. acorn squash
6 ounces bulk pork sausage
1/2 cup celery (optional)
2 tbsp. chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped peeled tart apple
1 tsp all purpose flour
1 egg lightly beaten
1/4 cup sour cream
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 cup diced processed cheese (velveeta)

Cut squash in half, remove seeds. Place cut side down in a greasted 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish. Cover and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, or until tender.
Meanwhile, in a small skillet, cook the sausage, celery and onion over med heat, until meat is no longer pink.
Add apple, and cook and stir for 3 min. drain.  In a bowl, combine the flour, egg and sour cream until smooth; stir into sausage mixture.
Once Squash comes out of oven, turn sqush over, and sprinkle cut sides with salt. Stuff with sausage mixture. Bake uncovered for 15 - 20 minutes or until heated through. Sprinkle with cheese; bake 5 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.

Now that last recipe does take some work, but once you taste it, you will know, its completely and 100% worth it!!!

Hope you all have a fantastic day, and a great weekend!!!