In all the years since I first fed Hunky Husband a meal in 1957, I've never known him to eat squash willingly. If a restaurant serves squash as part of a seasonal vegetable medley, he might accidentally consume a bit; but, when I serve squash at home, I am alone in its consumption. The preceding were true statements until a few weeks ago. You've all heard (and practiced, no doubt) that age and cunning will overcome youth and ambition. I am aged. I am cunning. I have induced HH to eat squash (not that he knew that he was consuming it, you understand, but....)
A few weeks ago, I tried a new (to me, at least) product: instant mashed sweet potatoes. It sounded like something that would be handy on the shelf. I tried it with baked pork chops and, although the seasons were a little "strange" to my taste buds, both HH and I found the mashed sweet potatoes acceptable. Then, a couple of weeks later, I actually read the box in which the two envelopes of product had come. It turned out that the sweet potatoes were mixed with Irish potatoes. Oh, well. No matter. I had a nefarious plan. Elegant Friend had given me the largest zucchini that I had ever laid eyes on (from her son's garden). It was about 18" long and about 5" in diameter.
I baked one-half of the zucchini, scooped the meat out of the "shell" (I didn't want the green to give me away and I saved the seeds for the squirrels), mashed it with a bit of milk, and mixed it with the instant sweet/Irish mashed potatoes. HH didn't notice the difference. The product was OK with him (what he didn't know didn't hurt him!)
Last week, I baked a medium-sized butternut squash, saved the strings and seeds for the squirrels, scooped out the meat, mashed the meat with low-fat cottage cheese, and otherwise followed a recipe for "Corn Squash Bake" from a book that I gave my mother in 1985, when she was coping with heart/cardio-pulmonary issues and diabetes, "The Best from the Family Heart Kitchens: A Guide to the Alternative Diet: Low-fat, Low-salt Cookery". I told HH (who always asks what it is that is being served, if he doesn't recognize it) that the dish was "Corn Casserole". Eventually, I let HH know that the casserole was based on mashed squash; but, by then, he had decided that he liked the dish!
Here is the recipe as it appears in the cookbook. As the cookbook says, "Corn and squash - an American tradition."
Corn Squash Bake
5 cups zucchini, cut into 1" rounds [I used mashed, baked butternut squash.]
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp. margarine [I used olive oil.]
2 cups corn, fresh-cut or frozen and thawed [I used whole-kernel canned corn, drained.]
1 cup low-fat cheese, shredded [I omitted this cheese since I had incorporated low-fat cottage cheese into the mashed squash.[
3 egg whites
1/2 tsp. Lite salt or less [I omitted salt.]
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
2 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese, grated
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook zucchini in small amount of water (about 1/4 cup) until tender. Drain and smash with fork. Saute onion in margarine. Combine mashed zucchini with sauteed onions, corn, cheese, egg whites and Lite salt. Turn into a 2-quart lightly oiled casserole. Combine bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese and sprinkle on top of casserole. Bake for 40 minutes or until set. Let stand 5-10 minutes before serving.
Makes 6 servings.
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