CSA Box Ideas: Zucchini and other squash

Anyone with a garden or a CSA box probably has more zucchini (and other summer squash) than they know what to do with! Here are two ideas for using some of them:

Dinner idea: Hidden Zucchini Pasta

This one is for those with kids who don't always eat their vegetables!

• 1 box cut spaghetti (spaghetti past cut into 1" strips)


• 2 medium zucchini or other squash (we used a lighter green mediterranean squash because that's what we had on hand)


• pasta sauce of your choice (we used butter, shredded italian cheese and cream because our kids prefer it, but tomato sauce or pesto would also be great)

Rinse the squash and cut off the ends. Grate the squash like you would a block of cheese (by hand or in the food processor). Cook the pasta according to directions and add the grated zucchini with a few minutes left in the cooking time. Drain, cover with sauce, and serve.

Our kids, who do not care for squash, didn't mention the little green strips in their pasta, they just chowed right down. No one said a word. A tomato sauce would hide the zucchini better, but the cream sauce seemed to work just fine here! The cut spaghetti is much easier for the little ones to get on their forks and it also matches the length of the shredded zucchini perfectly. The adults were equally happy with this very simple and very quick dinner that made 2 of our squash disappear!

Freezing squash:

If you just can't get through all that squash (we never can), you can freeze it to add to winter soups, pastas, stir-frys, zucchini bread, or anything you can imagine. Just shred it with a cheese grater or food processor, press out some of the excess water in a strainer, measure by the cup and freeze in bags labeled with the number of cups of shredded zucchini. Push as much air out of the bag as possible, flatten the bag for the first freeze, then you can line the bags up vertically in your freezer and they take up less space.