Squash & Meat Casserole

Since I canned some of our squash this summer, I have been thinking about ways to use it in different recipes. I haven't looked in any of my cookbooks yet, just tried to come up with a few on my own. This one turned out to be pretty good, and it was fun because almost all of the ingredients came from here or were made here.

 

I started off with three left over biscuits. That sounds really appetizing, doesn't it? I crumbled them in the bottom of a small, cast iron dutch oven. 

I love this pan. I have a larger cast iron dutch oven, but this one is great for small casseroles or baking a
tenderloin. We have bought most of our cast iron cookware from KaToms Restaurant Supply. They carry the entire Lodge Cast Iron line which is our preference.

I drained a jar of squash and layered it on top of the biscuits.

Then browned a package of ground chevron seasoned with salt, pepper and minced garlic, and layered it on top of the squash.

Next I mixed one cup of milk with three eggs. I would normally only use two eggs, but our pullet eggs are still pretty small, so I used three. I had to guess at these amounts since I hadn't made this recipe before.
Then I put 'some' large spoonfuls of salsa on as the next layer.

I decided to grate some cheddar cheese on top. Oh, about that much.




I baked this at 350 degrees for an hour. It looks and smells great. We both agree it tastes good too. It has a little too much bread for our tastes, and I think it could use a little more salsa, but it is well worth eating.

When I make an item like this, I think about what came from here and what I bought. To make this meal I bought flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, shortening, cider vinegar, rennet, pepper, minced garlic and onions. So when I think of what I need to stock up on, these are the items I get because I use them regularly. The ingredients that came from here are the squash, butter on the biscuits, ground chevron, salsa (except for the onions) and cheese. All of this means we canned the squash, made the butter from our goat milk, raised and butchered the goat, made the salsa out of homegrown tomatoes and peppers, and made the cheese from our goat milk.

As the years have gone by, we have been able to produce more of our own food. This has been a long term goal of ours and each small step we make at achieving this goal is an accomplishment that we enjoy and appreciate very much. There is always something new to be learned every single day.

Until next time - Fern