4 Weeks To Fill The Freezer: Day 2 (My Squash Experiment)

Today, I did not think I was going to get any freezer cooking done.  I certainly knew that I wasn't going to be baking cinnamon rolls according to Money Saving Mom's plan  (though i would like to play catch up tomorrow because those look yummy).

You see, I had the exterminator coming this morning, and we had to leave the house for a few hours this morning.  I got up at 4:30 as is my normal Wednesday routine.  He showed up at 8:30 and finished up and kicked us out around 9:15.   I didn't really have anyplace I needed to go, so it seemed like as good an excuse as any to hit the farmer's market!

I love to walk around the farmer's market and peruse the produce...my daughter loves to sample it!  We always have a great time.  I don't always buy anything, though.   I tend to find that Aldi's produce, and the various Hispanic grocery chains around here have better prices.  Sometimes, though, I find a good deal.

I've learned a little trick about the the farmers market--if you go on the side with the local vendors, sometimes they will have large baskets lined up under their tables.  They refer to these as "seconds" which basically means they sat out at the stand all the previous day and did not sell.  So, they reduce the price.   Um, I know that stuff sits much longer than one day at the grocery store before the price gets reduced, so this is not a problem to me in the least.

Here's the deal..up on top of the table there's a basket of 6-8 squash selling for $4.  Under the table, there's a basket filled with 21 squash--"yesterday's squash" selling for $5.  ??!!??!!  That's less than a quarter per squash!

So I bought a basket, as well as a lovely looking Eggplant for $1.  $6 total.  I might would have gotten a basket of zucchini, too but I only had $6 on me...

So after the farmer's market, we went to the library, then went and had lunch at McDonald's and played a bit.  Then we came home and had a nap...both of us.

Then as I sat and stared at the squash wondering what to do with them, I decided that pretty much out favorite way to eat these is fried with some cornmeal batter.   We all simply love them this way, so I began googling extensively researching how I could prepare them in this way for the freezer.

After reading several sites and forum postings I decided to try it this way:

Slice them up.  Leave them raw.  Toss in some milk to wet them.  Batter them up.  Lay them out on a baking sheet and freeze  (this makes them not stick together when you bag them, and its a trick we've learned to use for freezing just about everything now!).

I didn't do them all just yet-only 4, as I want to see how they come out after cooking.  These are going to be a side dish to go with my dinner from the freezer tomorrow night, so I'll give an update tomorrow night on how they turned out, and if they were good I will prepare the rest like this tomorrow.