What's Cooking Wednesday: Summer Squash Pancakes

Please go to The Fairy Blogmother for more What's Cooking Wednesday participants.

We used to have a tradition for Hanukkah that's fallen by the wayside - different pancakes for each night. It made sense to me since cooking in oil is traditional, latkes are traditional, and C just loved it.

Plus pancakes are easy and delicious. What's not to love?

As our mixed family has moved on to other traditions over the years, we no longer honor this one, but we still love pancakes of all kinds.

I had a lot of summer squash to use up. My Tantre Farm share partner's family doesn't love it, so we've been the recipients of their share of the squash, as well. As I stared in my fridge at the eight, large summer squash that needed to be used up, a lightbulb went off and I thought: "Pancakes!"

Now, zucchini/feta/mint pancakes are kind of a standard, but summer squash has a really different taste - sweeter - and somehow I didn't think that mint or feta would be the right blend.

Instead, this is what I came up with, and it seemed to be a hit, because D had thirds:

A2eatwrite's Summer Squash Pancakes



Ingredients

3 large summer squash, shredded
1 piece of whole wheat bread, ground into bread crumbs (I used a food processor for this, but a blender should work, too, or just use about 1/4 cup commercial bread crumbs)
1 egg, beaten
1/2 container part skim ricotta cheese
4 TBS grated Parmigiano Reggiano (yes, you can use any parmesan here, but the real thing will taste so much better)
2 cloves of garlic, minced fine
salt and pepper to taste (I used about 1 tsp kosher salt and 1/4 tsp fresh, ground pepper)
1 1/2 TBS olive oil
4 TBS reduced-fat sour cream (you can also use any type of sour cream, but this is what I used in terms of the nutritional information below).

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450. Set two oven racks at about the middle of the oven (one just above, one just below).
2. Brush two baking sheets with olive oil.
3. Wash and either grate or shred the summer squash. Mix all the ingredients together.
4. Using a 1/4 cup measure, place pancake mixture on prepared baking sheets and flatten with your hand. Drizzle pancakes with 1 TBS olive oil.
5. Bake at 450 for 13 minutes or until the tops look browned around the edges.
6. Take the pancakes from the oven, flip them and reverse the baking sheets in the oven (place the one from the top on the bottom, and vice versa).
7. Bake for another 10 minutes.

Note: Baking, rather than frying, is important, so that the garlic has a chance to mellow. A fried version of these would need to have the garlic cooked first.

Makes 16 pancakes.

Serve with a TBS of sour cream and a fresh salad. Serves 4.

Nutrition Facts (including the sour cream)

4 Servings

Amount Per Serving
Calories 255.2
Total Fat 15.2 g
Saturated Fat 6.4 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 1.1 g
Monounsaturated Fat 6.2 g
Cholesterol 83.9 mg
Sodium 251.5 mg
Potassium 743.9 mg
Total Carbohydrate 16.4 g
Dietary Fiber 3.2 g
Sugars 1.6 g
Protein 15.1 g


As always, nutrition info supplied by the recipe calculator function at Sparkrecipes.com.

If you'd be willing to, please leave your comments here.