Yellow Patty Pan Squash

What I Made – Salmon and Swiss Chard and Cheddar Squash Biscuits with Bonus Strawberry Shortcake

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I’m making a bit of an unscheduled update to show Friday night’s dinner. That’s Crispy Salmon with Wilted Chard which really is a perfect recipe. It became a go-to this winter and early spring when we seemed to have a constant supply.

But what I’m really here to share with you are these cheddar squash biscuits. Squash? In a biscuit? I was skeptical, but since basically hiding squash in recipes is the only way we prepare it (seriously, do any of the squash or zucchini recipes on here not involve shredding it?), I thought this was worth a try.

And the shocker?

It was pretty good!

The drop biscuits bake up fluffy and the combination of cheese and garlic makes it salty and savory. There are a few changes I’d make to the recipe, so I’ve written it out in full below.

Cheddar Squash Biscuits, adapted from Little House Living

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups Yellow Squash, shredded fine
3 cups Flour
1 teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder
4 Tablespoons Butter, melted
1 cup Sharp Cheddar Cheese, shredded
3/4 cup Milk

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 and spray a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray.
2. Combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
3. Stir the shredded squash into the dry ingredients and toss to combine. Mix in the cheese, followed by the milk and butter. The batter will be super sticky!
4. Form into balls about 3 inches in diameter and place in prepared pan.
5. Bake 20 minutes until brown.

These would be excellent brushed with additional garlic butter while warm, too!

In keeping with the biscuit theme, we also had strawberries shortcakes/biscuits! Tough to mess this up, yet I overbaked the biscuits a little – they were tough and too dry on the outside. As you might guess from the picture, we suffered through and ate them anyways. In fact, we ate ALL of the strawberries and will have to go buy some more to enjoy with the rest of our biscuits.

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What I Made – Week 6

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It was a lot of salads this week, but I did manage to make some other types of meals as well. Not pictured below include my go-to quiche with beet greens and green garlic from my garden and a garlic scape pesto made with basil from the farmers market.

This was the Tandoori Chicken and Rice Bake. I’ve really liked this recipe in the past, but the chicken turned out very tough and dry this time. Maybe it was because I used a 14.5 ounce can of light coconut milk and 1.5 cups of broth instead a 14.5 ounce can of broth, a cup of coconut milk and a half cup of water? Maybe I over cooked the chicken even though I didn’t fully cook it through in a skillet like the recipe says? I may never know.

This salad is inspired by chicken shawarma. The instructions had you marinate the whole chicken thigh with lots of spices, but since they were skin-on and bone-in, most of the spices stayed stuck to the skin. Even though I marinated these overnight, I didn’t get much flavor once the chicken was shredded.

Another day, another salad. This no-recipe salad includes roasted beets, quinoa, chipotle sausage, and goat cheese with a citrus vinaigrette (chopped shallots, orange juice, honey, red wine vinegar, and olive oil).

This may not look like much, but this pasta with hot Italian sausage and dandelion greens is one of our all-time favorite recipes for using up any greens from dandelion to Swiss chard to escarole. I do make some changes to the recipe. I use whatever type of pasta I have available, typically substitute hot Italian sausage for mild for the additional flavor, and use an imprecise mix of skim milk and some cream in place of the non-skim milk. After the sausage is browned, I leave the drippings in the pan and add whatever amount of butter I think will make up the difference to get around 3-4 tablespoons.

The dressing on this Vietnamese-Style Chicken & Noodle Salad is the perfect balance of sweet and tangy. I kept the veggie ingredients for the salad to cabbage, cucumber, cilantro, mint, and pickled radishes, only because I was too lazy to buy the other items. I layered this more like a traditional salad, but I wish I had tossed the cabbage and other veggies with the noodles as directed in the recipe to more evenly mix the ingredients and distribute the dressing.

Even though we made a lot of salads, we still have a head of red leaf lettuce and most of the head of cabbage left to use. The Swiss chard will be served with salmon for dinner. I’m thinking about trying these biscuits to use up those last two yellow patty pan squash. I’ll be making strawberry shortcake/biscuits tonight to finish up those strawberries, since our fruit share starts next week! Maybe soon we’ll move away from lettuce and start fruit salad season? A girl can dream…

What I’ve Planned – Week 6

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If I could rename this blog, I would call it “Salad Season” because each May we laugh about how much lettuce we seem to get, saying it’s to prepare our bodies for lounging beside swimming pools and on beaches. Somehow, the sudden bounty of leafy greens doesn’t have much effect on my physique, but it’s still nice to be eating lighter as the weather gets warmer, at least, most days.

Here are some of the things I’m planning to make this week.

  • Tandoori chicken bake (I shred an entire zucchini or squash to make this casserole that is loaded with hidden vegetables!)
  • Salad with goat cheese, quinoa, and roasted beets
  • Pasta with Sausage and Dandelion Greens (adapted from this recipe, substituting hot Italian sausage for sweet, and dandelion greens for the chard)

I’m trying to put that lettuce to use in lots of salad recipes this week. We typically take leftovers as lunch, so it really works out to salad every day. I won’t wish this time of year away, though, because after Salad Season comes Summer Squash Overload, and it will be here before we know it.