Maque Choux. Bless you.

There are certain foods that people like that I really wish I could like, but do not. Mushrooms fall into this category. Bleu cheese. Cantaloupe. Fennel. It's not a very long list. Oh, and there's one more. Okra.

I've been trying to like okra for awhile now. But like my problem with mushrooms, it's a textural thing. Mushrooms are spongy and odd. Okra is slimy.

I've tried it fried, added to soup, in gumbo. Slimy, slimy and slimy. But recently I've had two separate conversations with okra lovers, real born and raised Southerners. I approached it politely. "Don't you find okra to be a bit, you know, slimy?" I asked. Not at all they insisted. Both of these people suggested stewed tomatoes and okra. Okra turned up in our box this week, so why not give it a try?

I found this simple vegetarian recipe for Stewed Corn and Tomatoes, or maque choux, on Epicurious.  Maque choux is a Cajun dish, based on a Native American one. You're supposed to use fresh corn, but I only had frozen. Wrong and I'm sorry-- and I promise next time to use fresh.

But everything else was completely fresh.
Homegrown peppers.

CSA tomatoes.

I made a couple of other changes. We had a big leek so I used that instead of the scallions. And I left out the jalapeno seeds, being a wimp about spicy stuff, and a hater of seeds in my food. Seriously, pepper seeds drive me crazy. Any time I cut one up, any variety, I have to completely remove any and all seeds from the pepper and from the cutting board before I can move ahead with slicing or dicing, or whatever.

So now that you know about more about my food compulsions than you ever wanted to. The maque choux. It smelled wonderful. The corn was sweet, the tomatoes delicious. The jalapenos were just the right amount of spicy. The okra. It tasted good. The slime was still there though. But I admit: the whole of stewed tomatoes and okra is pretty much larger than the sum of its parts.

Tomato Sandwiches

I was plugging my digital camera into the side of my computer just now, and it reminded me of the scene in A Christmas Story where the dad goes to plug in his lamp, and there are so many cords. That's exactly how it looks. What the heck are they all for?

The friends we share our CSA box with went out of town this week, so we got the whole box to ourselves. It's quite the haul.

I've been celebrating the tomatoes with tomato sandwiches. I made basil mayonnaise: mayo, lemon juice, a bit of lemon peel, salt and pepper, a dash of Dijon mustard. And basil, of course. This has been my lunch every day this week.

And just in case you think I've run out of squash ideas, I have one more. I made this Summer Squash Gratin from 101 Cookbooks. I had stayed up way too late the night before, so I was struggling and every step of this recipe took twice as long as it should have. It turned out to be well worth the effort though.

Summer Squash: A Second Way

I like to make summer squash like this: sauteed in a pan with onions, peppers and cheese. It's easy and tasty and allows you to use any leftover odds and ends of veggies and cheese you have lying around.

I used two yellow summer squashes and one zucchini. Slice them in half then slice again into these little half moon wedges

and slice a quarter or so of an onion (I like red) and some peppers. (The pale green ones are Cubenelles, grown by my husband. He has a pepper obsession.)

Saute in a pan. I like the squash to have a bit of crispness on the outside. Use a large enough pan so that everything has room.

I neglected to follow my own advice. You can't see them here, but we found a couple of ripe cherry tomatoes (yay!) so I threw those in as well. If you have a tomato, chop it up and add it to the mix. It makes a kind of sauce for the squash.

Sprinkle with shredded cheddar and Parmesan, and let the cheese melt. I usually just put a lid on my pan and let it melt while I attend to the rest of the meal, but you could also slide it into the oven and let the cheese brown up. We eat this as a side dish mostly, but it's also great over pasta.

So there you have it. Squash two ways, on two different days. Enjoy!