Back in the late spring when we were busy sowing seeds I asked my son what he would like to grow this year. He clearly had something in mind, but he couldn’t remember what it was called. A few image searches online later and he excitedly confirmed what he was trying to describe: a patty pan. So he sowed a patty pan seed and it germinated very quickly. He asked to water it, and frequently asked for updates on his patty pan.

Unfortunately back in June high winds snapped the young patty pan plant. We decided not to tell our son, and instead planted a replacement. So this replacement plant has always been his patty pan. A few weeks later whilst we were clearing our newly acquired allotment I asked our son what he wanted to grow there. Without hesitation he replied that he wanted his patty pan to grow at the allotment. So one weekend we took the young potted plant to the allotment, and he helped me to plant and water it.

When I returned from watering the allotment of an evening, he would often excitedly ask me how his patty pan plant was doing. One weekend he accompanied me to the allotment and we found that a couple of patty pans had matured enough to use. He wanted to take them home, but I asked him to wait until the next weekend so that we could all eat them together.

One weekend my son and I discovered a couple of patty pans had matured enough to use.

In the meantime Liz and I discussed how best to use them in a way that would appeal to a child. We couldn’t remember a time when the kids had tried patty pans. Liz and I particularly enjoy them stuffed, and we agreed this would be the best way to serve them to our children. Prepared this way the patty pans would retain their shape and the kids would be able to easily identify the patty pans on their plates.

The kids love all things pasta, so Liz raided the store cupboard and came up with the idea of stuffing the patty pans with orzo. Orzo is pasta in small rice grain shaped pieces. These small pieces of pasta were the perfect size for stuffing our patty pans, and provided an excellent contrast to the texture of the summer squash.

Liz began by hollowing out the patty pans, keeping the area around the stalk to be used as a lid later. Then she moved on to the stuffing. Firstly she softened some onions in a mixture of butter and olive oil, before adding the orzo and leaving this mixture to sweat off for a few minutes. Next she added some vegetable stock, a little at a time, until a risotto consistency was reached. Next in went some grated mature cheese and some salt and pepper. Then this stuffing mixture was spooned into the patty pans, the lids replaced and the stuffed patty pans were placed in a preheated oven and left until the patty pans had started soften, which took about 30 minutes.

A patty pan stuffed with risotto-style orzo pasta.

The kids enjoyed their stuffed patty pans, although the common theme was that the stuffing was eaten in its entirety, but some patty pan was left. But they tried them, and ate a fair amount. Our son was very pleased with himself for having played a big part in providing that day’s dinner, and we were very proud of him for choosing the crop he wanted to grow, and actually trying it once it was on the plate.

Liz and I thoroughly enjoyed our stuffed patty pans. Let’s face it, patty pans aren’t the most flavoursome food, and they aren’t as versatile as winter squashes. But they are fun to grow – low maintenance plants that yield eye-catching fruits. That we can eat them is almost a bonus! We would definitely prepare them this way again.

We thought that would be it for patty pans this year, as the plant didn’t look particularly vigorous, and there were no further fruits forming when we harvested these two. But since then we’ve had another couple, although we’re quite sure that we’ve now harvested the last of them. The other two were a couple of weeks apart and they ended up just bulking out other dishes, one was used in a curry, and the other a stew. But of course, the real patty pan story this year for us was our son’s keen interest in putting food on the table.