SQUASH WEEK! Part Deux.

I took last Tuesday off work so I could drive my entries in the LA County Fair baking competition to Pomona. On Thursday morning, I patted myself on the back for completing my mid-week blog entry. On Friday I thought, "I wonder what I should write about for Friday's post." A few hours later I thought, "Wait, it IS Friday." I learned a valuable lesson: take only Tuesday off work and you will be thoroughly confused as to what day it actually is for the rest of the week.Soooo, I am sorry, dear readers. I am sorry that you only got one of the two delicious squash recipes I meant to offer you. You can blame it on the LA County Fair. And you can visit the Culinary Styles area at the fair to see how I did in the baking competition. I'll find out myself this weekend.

I mentioned that I picked several lovely patty pan squash from my friend's garden. You may not know the name, but if you are a farmer's market regular, you probably know the squash. I bought my first patty pan for a seasonal tablescape. I didn't know what it was called, I just knew it was pure white and shaped like a cartoon flower. After the squash did its duty as a centerpiece, I brought it over to my computer and googled around until I found out what exactly it was. Knowing what it was, I wanted to know how I could cook it, so I googled a bit more.

If you have ever looked for a recipe by typing something generic into a search bar, you've realized how very many recipes are available online. If you have cooked many of them, you've realized how very many mediocre recipes are available online. I went to a food writing panel hosted by the amazing 826LA last year and one of the panelists talked about getting ready to make a bran muffin recipe she found online, and realizing the recipe didn't call for any liquids. There may be many ways to skin a cat, but there is probably no way to make a muffin with only dry ingredients.

Maybe the internet can't always be trusted, but if you are committed to cooking seasonally, or interested in making do with just what you have on hand, the internet can be a help. And a knowledge--even a basic knowledge--of recipe anatomy and cooking skills will help you weed through the mediocre recipes that may crowd your search results.

Because I'm not a trained chef, I don't have a vast repertoire of cooking skills, but I have focused on learning how to do a few things well. This helps me weed through recipes and keep myself fed on weeknights. My basic weeknight dinner consists of three core elements: vegetable, starch or grain, protein. But because I have a those few honed cooking skills, those three elements can manifest in a number of ways. Starch/grain can be rice (white, brown, wild), couscous (the tiny kind or Israeli couscous), quinoa, potatoes or bread. For the vegetable, I work with the season. Anything vaguely pencil shaped (asparagus, green beans, Chinese broccoli) I toss with olive oil and salt and roast in a 375 degree oven until I can see some char. For hearty leaf-life vegetables (spinach, kale), I heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a pan on the stove, toss in the vegetable and some garlic, cook until it tastes done and finish with a squeeze of lemon juice and freshly ground pepper. For the protein, I usually saute a chicken breast in olive oil (I go through a lot of olive oil), toss in diced shallots halfway through cooking and finish with a squeeze of lemon juice, or a splash of white wine or vermouth if I happen to be drinking some while I cook (Yes, I drink straight vermouth. On the rocks.)

We all have our weeknight dinner routines: grain/starch, veg, protein is mine. Unless, that is, my gluten-intolerant good buddy happens to be staying with me. Several years ago, when this buddy became a regular dinner guest, I had fun exploring desserts that required nary a single molecule of wheat (panne cotta, aspic). However, when he moved out of town, I slacked off on the World Without Gluten cooking. But he visited recently and I knew I needed a recipe that didn't have gluten and that I could prepare in advance and just finish off while catching up when I got home from work.

I hearkened back to the day when I googled around with my patty pan squash at my side. The day when the internet did not give me mediocrity, but a recipe that has proven time and again to be easy and delicious. It's Patty Pan Squash Lasagna and if you make it in two nine by nine inch pans, you can have one for dinner and stow one in the fridge for when your buddy with the gluten allergy comes over for dinner on a weeknight.

Cut one large squash into lasagna noodle-like slices, 1/4 inch thick. Lay the squash out on paper towels or cooling racks and sprinkle with salt. Allow to sit for an hour. The salt will draw the water out of the squash, so your lasagna doesn't become a soggy mess. After an hour, wash the squash and pat dry with towels. If you decide that washing the squash post-salting is an unnecessary step, you will be sorry, because your lasagna will be a glorified salt lick. Trust me on this.

Oil a 1 1/2 qt baking pan (or two square pans). Line the bottom of the pan with a layer of squash. Spoon spaghetti sauce evenly over the squash. Add a layer of ricotta, a layer of shredded mozzarella and a sprinkling of parmesan. Repeat this layering (squash, sauce, ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan). You'll need roughly a jar of sauce, 8 oz of ricotta, 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella and 1/2 parmesan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until the top is nicely browned.

You can assemble this, but instead of baking right then, wrap the dish well and freeze. Put it directly from the freezer into the oven, it might just take a wee bit longer to bake.