Sauteed Squash with Tomatoes & Onions

First full week of June. The summer rhythm is here. I'm at the smoker more days than the workshop. The garden is producing in real volume now — beans coming on, the first cucumbers, the squash starting, the cherry tomatoes ripening. Hannah is at Elohi most days, full pace into the summer programming, so the kitchen evening rotation has me cooking five nights a week and her two. Fine with me. The kitchen is where I want to be.

Caleb and Miriam came for dinner Tuesday. He drove her over after they'd both been at separate work things. I made bean bread and roasted chicken and asparagus and a salad of strawberries and arugula and goat cheese. Miriam looked at the table and said: this is better than restaurant food. I said: this is regular food. She said: this is not regular food. Caleb said: he says that about everything he cooks. I said: I don't. He said: you do. They laughed. We ate. After dinner Miriam helped Hannah clean up while Caleb and I sat on the porch. He said: I asked her to be exclusive. I said: when. He said: last weekend. I said: what did she say. He said: she said yes. He said: I haven't had this. I said: you're fifty-three. It's late. He said: yeah. He said: but it's here. I said: yes. He said: I don't want to lose it. I said: don't lose it.

Wednesday I drove to Tahlequah and met Hannah for lunch at a new restaurant downtown — a small place run by a woman who'd worked at fancier places and come home to do something on her own terms. Cherokee food, modernized. We had a corn and bean cake topped with smoked trout, a pawpaw curd dessert, a hibiscus iced tea. Hannah and I talked about the menu the whole drive home. The restaurant is doing what Hannah's been pushing for at Elohi for fifteen years — taking ancestral food and making it not nostalgic but contemporary. The chef is twenty-eight. She came up to the table at the end and Hannah introduced herself and the chef said: oh, you're Hannah Whitehawk. The chef knew who Hannah was. Hannah is becoming known in the food world. I am proud of her in a way I've been proud of her for thirty-five years and which I'll never get tired of being.

The squash had been coming on hard all week — more than we could keep up with — and the cherry tomatoes were finally turning. After a dinner like Tuesday’s, with the roasted chicken and the salad and all of it, I wanted Wednesday night to be quieter. Something pulled straight from what was already there. This dish is exactly that: squash and tomatoes and onion, cooked down until they know each other, nothing extra needed.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium yellow squash, sliced into half-moons (about 1/4 inch thick)
2 medium zucchini, sliced into half-moons (about 1/4 inch thick)
1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
2 tablespoons fresh basil, torn

Instructions

Heat the pan. Warm olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering but not smoking.
Cook the onion. Add the sliced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 6 minutes until softened and beginning to turn golden at the edges.
Add garlic. Stir in the minced garlic and cook for 1 minute until fragrant. Don’t let it brown.
Saute the squash. Add the yellow squash and zucchini. Season with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes if using. Cook, stirring every couple of minutes, for 8 to 10 minutes until the squash is tender and lightly golden on some edges.
Add tomatoes. Fold in the cherry tomatoes and thyme. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes more, just until the tomatoes soften and begin to release their juices. Adjust salt to taste.
Finish and serve. Remove from heat, scatter torn basil over the top, and serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sauteed Squash with Tomatoes & Onions — What the Garden Gives You in June