Cute Squash

Zuchinni is the squash I use to make one of my favorite dishes of Calabacitas. I remember my mother using a yellow squash with a scalloped edge but I have never used that yellow squash. One day while speaking with a friend, she mentioned some little green round squash. I told her I had never seen a small, round squash and she said that Heinie's Market sells them. On my visit to Heinie's I picked up one yellow and two round  squashes to experiment using squash I had never used.

I did not want to make Calabacitas with my new to me squash and looked on the Internet to see how I could prepare the squash. The yellow squash is called a Patty Pan and the green one is called Tatume Summer squash and it is actually called Calabacita. I learned that it has been a favorite of Mexico and Southern Texas for ever! Most of the recipes called for roasting so I cut the squash into big chunks, added onion, sprinkled salt and pepper and dribbled olive oil over the pieces. I realized it would make a tasty side dish to go with a main dish and could take the place of potatoes.

Both are soft and the green one had the taste of how my mother would make Calabacitas. Maybe I had finally found the secret to make mine like hers used to taste! No matter how hard I try, my cooking is close to my mother's cooking but never exactly like hers!

"Roasting veggies is by far

our favorite way to make them

and patty pan squash is no exception."

From the Internet