Slow Cooker Squash and Beef Masala

Indian spices, patty pan squash and ground beef comingle in this slow cooker supper.  A tasty way to feed the family from the farm share on a busy afternoon.

With school starting I feel like I'm supposed to say our days will get busier, but more than the busier Fall days, I am looking forward to the structure of the coming weeks.  Without any structure to each week (my activities have been irregular this summer), meals and meal times have really been fluid.  We'll eat lunch at 2 pm, then not really be hungry for dinner.  Having the kids up at ___ time, out the door at ___ time, with evening activities at ___ time will give me a framework on which to hang meals.  Then my spouse will return, and we'll soon be in the swing our our family routine again.  I'm looking forward to that.

I use my slow cooker year round, but not often enough for it to get Pride of Place in the kitchen.  It lives in the basement Active Storage area.  Technically I have 3 slow cookers, so they live in this area.
[My spouse has an engineer brain, so we have an Active Storage area and a Cold Storage area--which doesn't store food, but does store less frequently accessed items like Christmas decorations.]  I primarily use my ancient 3-4 Quart Crock pot, but I love to heat spaghetti sauce in my little one (for the days when my son is in charge of boiling the noodles right before the rest of us get home) and make Kalua Pig or soup stock in my large one.

I developed this recipe from a desire to use some of the cow in the freezer and the patty pan squash from the CSA farm share in a form that my kids would enjoy over multiple meals.  They loved Rebecca of Foodie With Family's Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala when I riffed off it to make my Slow Cooker Chicken and Chick Pea Tikka Masala.  I figured I'd do something similar.  Since tikka = chicken it makes no sense to title this dish "Tikka" anything as there's no chicken in it, but since masala = a sauce, usually with tomatoes and spices and cream, I'm good with my title.  This makes a lot, and the leftovers are good in a thermos for a school or work lunch.

Pizza with Raspberries, Goat Cheese, and Balsamic Syrup (Pizza Night!)

A savory-sweet combination of raspberries, goat cheese, and balsamic syrup on a tender buttermilk pizza dough.  An excellent light pizza for a summer evening.

Pizza, for me, is a way to incorporate what we've got handy from the farm share into a hand held cheese-topped delivery vehicle.  Since I make pizzas most every Friday night, it's a routine around here.

Marching band season will throw a wrench into this scheme, but we like our pizza too much to let that stop us--I'll keep posting pizzas on Fridays even if we're not eating our newest pizza (and I'm not posting the fresh shots on my FB page on the same day.  The Spirit of the Friday Night Pizza will endure while I'm volunteering at the concession stand doling out . . . ahem . . . Marching Tacos.

[As an aside (can I do an aside within an aside?) I really would not consider myself a Foodie or a food snob (two different terms to me).  I've never tasted truffle oil, or Scharffenberger chocolate, or other high falutin' ingredients I can't think up right now, though if you want to feed me some I'll happily try anything.  

However, I will say that, as an example, a strawberry that is built to cross multiple state lines does not taste like any strawberry I like to eat.  To paraphrase A Chorus Line, Looks 10, Taste . . . well 3 is generous, but I'm feeling generous).  I am more a proponent of fresh local food which invariably tastes better, all falutin'ness aside, and life is too short to eat food that doesn't taste good.  How did I get from 'cheese in a bag' to local food?  Where was I? Pizza.]

I'm still not ready to create a dessert pizza, but I'm leaning towards it with today's pizza.  It's a combination of sweet raspberries and tangy goat cheese, on top of a soft and tangy buttermilk pizza dough, with a sauce of reduced balsamic vinegar syrup because this blog post got me craving it and showed me how to make it.
It's a change of pace for us, a nice light summery pizza, good with a glass of wine on a shady porch.  If you're interested in other fruit-on-pizza options, I've got some suggestions after the recipe.

Chocolate Zucchini Waffles

I never set out to make zucchini waffles.  I'm such a fan of shredded zucchini pancakes/latkes, with butter and parmesan, that I think of zucchini nearly always as a savory, not a sweet. [Heed the words!  Pay no attention to this cake or these muffins!]

When I get overwhelmed with zucchini in the summer I reflexively grab the Food Processor, slap on the 'fine shred' disc, and shred those puppies up before freezing cups of shredded squash in bags.  I've noticed I get about 1/2 cup of squash back, when it's thawed and I've squeezed all the water out, so this summer I will be packing 2 cup bags, though right now all the garden volunteers are pie pumpkins, not zucchini, so I'm not overwhelmed.  Yet.  

Just another week in Squashzilla-land.

In the dead of winter (see photo below), when even my never-say-die Swiss chard has given up, these bags of green goodness cheer me and make me want to celebrate. With chocolate.  It's good to celebrate with chocolate, right?

Try these now, or shred and freeze some zucchini to have a mini summer celebration this winter.  Either way, you're in for a treat.