Squashing Summer Dinners

lots of ways to use summer veggies

Each month we want to take some time here in The Broiler Room to appreciate a fruit, vegetable, or other ingredient that is showing up a lot in my seasonal cooking. We know not all of you are able to join us in our Sunday Recipe Club edition of the newsletter but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about what’s on your plate. What all of us eat matters and there’s no better way to eat more vegetables for a good price than to eat whatever’s in season. Here in the northern hemisphere, we’re waist deep in summer veggies and I’m currently eating my weight in strawberries like it was a dare. Tap that ❤️ on this newsletter if summer contains some of your favorite fruits and veggies too. This week we’re going to dive into a veggie that is plentiful and cheap: zucchini, the most famous of the summer squashes.

zucchini patch 📸: Spruce Eats

Summer is the beginning of two seasons of gourd dominance in the produce department. The pumpkin is the lord of gourds while zucchini isn’t even acknowledged at the family reunion. Summer squash, like zucchini, have thin, soft skins and soft edible seeds, whereas winter squash have a hard skin like acorn squash and the famous pumpkin. But you can kinda see how they’re similar right? Summer squash are in the Cucurbita pepo family just like cucumbers, melons, and gourds like pumpkins. 

this bee wouldn’t leave my gourds alone

All squash comes from Mexico and Central America and are some of the oldest domesticated plants in the world, predating corn and beans by more than 4,000 years. Tatuma or tatume, occasionally called pale zucchini, was domesticated in modern-day Mexico over 10,000 years ago and hasn’t changed all that much since. It looks like a white brindled zucchini and shows up in lots of grocery stores just labeled as zucchini because people are lazy. Modern zucchini was cultivated by Italian farmers with plants brought over from the Americas and wasn’t reintroduced to the US until the end of 1800’s. Apparently it needed to spend some time in Europe before American’s would take it seriously. But no matter how you slice them, summer squash have been a friend to humans for thousands of years so try not to act too put out when your neighbor with a garden won’t stop shoving them down your throat.

Summer squash are full of potassium, zinc, and magnesium as well as tons of B vitamins. You can eat them raw, roasted, and sautéed, and even the blossoms and leaves are fucking delicious. Almost all varieties can grow to massive sizes, but small and medium-size summer squash are the way to go. They just taste better. You want them brightly colored, with glossy skin with minimal cuts or scarring, and firm to the touch with no signs of shriveling. Most summer squashes are interchangeable, just varying in size and a little in texture. So if one looks better to you at the store than another, go ahead and buy that shit. It won’t mess up the recipe. Pattypan, crookneck, eight ball, and yellow squash, whatever you find in your market is good to go. 

Summer squash will stay fresh for 4 or 5 days on your counter in a cool spot or for over a week if you store them in a loosely closed bag in the fridge. If you’re grabbing some squash blossoms, look for bright flowers with no wilting. When you get them home, sprinkle them with some water, wrap them in a towel, and throw them in the fridge. Cook these fucks ASAP because they won’t last long. 

zoodles are not pasta. nice try

Got more summer squash than you can handle? Age-old problem. Slice it into thin strips and fold it into your warm pasta as you dress it with your sauce of choice. The heat will wilt the squash and it will mix into everything without standing out. They’ll help add some green to the meal but the presence of real noodles helps balance the dish out because I will never accept zoodles as real noodles. You can use a spiralizer for this but this julienne peeler is cheaper and faster to use if you want to give your knife a break.

If you’re growing these guys yourself,

Will Cooper

over at

A Private Chef

posted a recipe for a beautiful pasta sauce/pesto using squash leaves and hazelnuts that would be very easy to veganize. If you’re looking to try something with a little more flash using the squash itself, try out Thomas Keller’s viral zucchini recipe that Tiktok can’t get enough of.

@cocolarkincooksThomas Keller viral zucchini dish. I will be eating this all summer. #viralcooking #cookingtiktok

Tiktok failed to load.

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And last, but not least, we’ve got a great recipe featuring zucchini for you: our Grilled Veggie Couscous Salad. It’s a great break from the more traditional pasta salads you eat all summer and features zucchini and corn. Get the recipe here or in the attached pdf.

Thanks for spending your weekend with us.