Squash Recipes

Squash are native to North American and were important food sources for the native Americans who ate not only the fruit of the squash, but the leaves and blossoms. Squash seeds can be used to make cooking oil, or eaten as a snack - pumpkin seeds are now available in health food stores for healthy snacking. Squash was such an important feature of early native American agriculture that one of the most beautiful designs in native turquoise jewelry is a pattern of radiating turquoise pieces set in silver called the 'squash blossom'.

Squash are so easy to grow and a few vines can produce more squash than one family can eat. For this reason, squash is a punchline in numerous jokes such as when the neighbor who answers the door and discovers no one there but a bag of zucchini on the porch.

Zucchini and yellow squash are summer squash, harvested when small and young, their skins still tender and edible. Health-conscious people often substitute squash for a starchier vegetable such as potatoes or rice, using them in similar ways, such as scalloped. A variety called spaghetti squash has the interesting feature that when cooked, its edible flesh can be pulled out of the shell in strands that very closely resemble spaghetti pasta, which can be eaten with pasta sauces. Summer squash are low in calories and are therefore familiar to dieters.

Winter squash are the large hard-skinned vine-growers such as pumpkins and acorn squash. The outer skin is usually too tough to eat, and the squash is either prepared by paring the rind away, or cooked in the skin with the soft insides eaten out with a spoon.