I shred and freeze for zucchini latkes (mixed with potato) and Patricia Wells' Zuchinni Galette recipe which is very good. ZUCCHINI GALETTE Patricia Wells 1 pound zucchini (4 medium), trimmed 2 teaspoons fine sea salt 2 large eggs 1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs 1/2 cup (2 ounces) freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese 1 teaspoon curry powder (see Note) Fresh tomato sauce (optional) Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Using the coarse grating blade of a food processor, coarsely grate the zucchini. Transfer to a colander, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of the salt, and let sit to drain for 30 minutes. Rinse the zucchini under cold running water, spread it out in an absorbent dish towel, and press to remove as much liquid as possible. Place the eggs in a large bowl and beat lightly with a fork. Add the bread crumbs, cheese, curry powder and final teaspoon of salt. Add the zucchini and stir to thoroughly coat the zucchini with the batter. Place in a 10 1/2-inch round baking dish and even out the top with the back of a spatula. Place in the center of the oven and bake until golden, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve with a fresh tomato sauce, if desired.

I usually blanch it if I freeze it. I like to cut summer squash into slices that I can thaw out later and cook either on top of the stove as boiled squash or in the oven in a squash casserole. I pick it, wash it, slice it, blanch it for 3 minutes, cool it, pack it into bags and freeze it. I try to process it within a couple of hours of picking it so that its quality does not deteriorate. A lot of people like to skip the blanching step, but it is an important one. Blanching not only slows down the enzymes that destroy the fruit or veggies flavors, but also cleans off microorganisms that might be lurking on the surface of your squash (freezing doesn't kill all microorganisms), helps the veggie maintain its bright color, and helps the veggie maintain its high vitamin content. Without blanching, the veggies dull in color and flavor after only about 4 weeks, their vitamin content drops and they get mushier. (However, with regards to mushiness, all veggies have some mushiness after freezing because of their high water content.) So, while you don't "have to" blanch, I almost always do. Since one reason I am growing veggies and fruits is because I want tasty, high-quality produce, it makes sense to me to process it quickly and correctly so it maintains its quality. Sometimes I dry some like Diane does, but usually I'm so busy dehydrating tomatoes that I freeze the squash instead. I handle zucchini differently by the way. I shred it for future use in zucchini bread, zucchini-chocolate cake and zucchini-chocolate cookies. All of them are a great way to "sneak" a vegetable into everyone's diet. In addition to freezing or dehydrating squash, you can pickle it either as pickles or in relish.

After you freeze it and then thaw it and eat it, the flavor itself doesn't really change, but the texture does. Frozen squash that has been thawed is more watery and a little mushy (depends on how you cook it) in comparison to fresh squash. Saved seed, as others have noted, may or may not give you exactly the same squash you had. If the spaghetti squash was an open-pollinated variety that didn't cross-pollinate with another squash in the same species (C. pepo, so that would include zucchini, scallop, acorn, crookneck, straightneck, etc.), then you might get a harvest of squash just like the one from which you saved seeds. However, if your original squash came from a hybrid variety, you might or might not get something similar---it would be just the luck of the draw depending on how the genes sorted. Since hybrids are creating by crossing two (or more) parents lines, you don't know how genes will resort when they are coming from seed created by plants that are children of the original cross. Squash bugs are pretty much a perpetual problem once they find your garden, as are squash vine borers. However, every now and then, you get a year where one or the other, or even both, just don't show up. I think my last year like that was 2011 or 2012. You have to aggressively attack the squash bugs every year, using every organic method at your disposal. It is especially important to find them all and kill them all every autumn, and to dispose of all squash plant debris (via burning it or bagging it up and having it hauled away as trash) so it will not serve as an overwintering location for the squash bugs. Skipping planting squash one year might help or it might not. If someone near you is growing squash, they'll be over in their garden this year, and then come back to yours the next year you plant squash. Squash vine borers show up for 2 and sometimes 3 generations a year in our climate. Each generation seems to last about 6 weeks. I believe a member of this forum who lives down here in southern Oklahoma may have had 4 generations this year, which is very rare. (One generation is one too many, but we cannot do anything about that.....). The best hope of beating them is to grow only squash from the C. moschata species (or some of the cushaws from C. argyrosperma) as they have dense stems (other squash have hollow ones which allow the squash vine borers to bore through them) which prevent the borers from tunneling through them. It also helps if you can move the squash around within the garden, rotating it from one location to another each year, which at least makes the overwintering squash vine borers and squash bugs have to search harder to find your plants. Early plantings sometimes have time to get big and produce a harvest before squash bugs or squash vine borers show up....and sometimes they don't. Growing under floating row cover or in isolation cages helps a great deal, but generally requires you to hand-pollinate your squash blooms daily as the covers prevent pollinators from reaching the flowers. The Cucurbita family is large and very diverse. The different members of the cucurbita family can cross with other cucurbitas, but only with the ones that are in their same genus and species. So, cucumbers, which are Cucumis sativus, can cross with other cucumbers that also are C. sativus, but they wouldn't cross with any of the squash (which are from a different genus (Cucurbia) and any one of several different species, including C. pepo, C. agryrosperma, C. maxima, and C. moschata) or with the melons that are in the Cucumis melo family (true cantaloupes, muskmelons, honeydew, Armenian cucumbers, vine peaches or Asian pickling melons) or with watermelons that are Citrullus lunatas, even though they all are in the Cucurbitaceae family. Watermelons cross with other watermelons, but they don't cross with squash, melons or gourds. Within the Cucurbita family, maximas will only cross with other maximas and pepos with other pepos, etc., for the most part although I won't say it cannot happen or never will happen because I think it can be done at least with some things in lab conditions. If you want to save seed in the future, there are ways to ensure that open-pollinated varieties produce true from seed, and this can include isolating the blossoms by bagging, caging or using floating row cover and hand-pollinating it yourself to prevent insect- or wind-aided pollination. (That's a general comment on saving seed in general, not one specific to squash.) With each type of seed you want to save, you have to know how it pollinates to know how to control the pollination or even if you need to try to control it.) You also can isolate by distance, although the generally recognized isolation distance can be hard to achieve if you aren't on acreage, or widely isolated from farm fields or other gardeners. While squash bugs are a pretty consistent problem almost statewide, I don't think I had squash vine borers for our first 7 or 8 years here, and it was wonderful. I grew up to 30 varieties of squash a year and really loved it. I knew one day the SVBs would find us, and once they did, I now mostly restrict myself to growing only squash from the C. moschata family. Every now and then I'll grow one of the cushaw varieties, or maybe one C. pepo or C. maxima variety, but most years they aren't worth the time it takes because the SVBs will hit them before the squash can mature. While most C. moschata varieties are winter squash varieties, any of them can be harvested a short while (just a couple of days) after the flowers are fertilized for use as a summer squash while young and tender. There also is a summer squash that is C. moschata. It is an Oriental variety known as an avocado squash. I find it easier to grow it than to worry and fret about the squash bugs and squash vine borers getting my C. pepo, C. maxima or C. agyrosperma plants. One year I waited until my C. moschata vines were big and running all over the place and then planted an ornamental pumpkin that was C. pepo variety "Goosebumps", right in the middle of them and the squash bugs and squash vine borers didn't find it until it already had produced a couple of mature pumpkins for Halloween decorations. That is more the exception than the rule, though. If money were no object, I'd build a high tunnel and cover it with mosquito netting or some other kind of netting like the pricey ProTek netting to exclude the squash bugs and squash vine borers so I could grow all the squash I want. However, since I live in the real world where a budget matters, I just focus on growing the types the squash bugs and squash vine borers generally cannot or do not kill. Or, I grow some C. pepos under summerweight floating row covers, but the wind here in OK can make that challenging since it likes to lift up those row covers (even when staked down to the ground) and carry them away on the wind. Don't be afraid to try to grow whatever variety, species and genus of squash you like, but just be aware that with anything that is C. pepo or C. maxima, and most of the C. agyrospermas, you will have to take extraordinary action to keep the squash bugs and squash vine borers from killing the plants. Squash bugs actually harm them by spreading disease, so choosing the most disease-tolerant varieties you can find also helps. Dawn

I always freeze my spaghetti squash, in zip lock baggies. I just thaw it out and stick in whatever I want ...it cooks very quickly...not quite sure what you're asking ...but it's basically a vegetable...you can add it to water based things(soups, stew), or sautee it...It will only get mushy if you overcook it. I have a large pot and can fit 4 in it at once..I put a couple inches of water in the pot, poke a hole in each squash, then steam till the sides are mushy. Then I let them cool, so I can handle them, deseed them, and bag them up...so mine are partially cooked before I freeze, and it's not mushy...mushy is from overcooking. I store mine in a hallway closet, cool, dark, and dry. I am not sure about that advice for humidity...kind of goes against my instincts for squash...you want humidity for carrots..but not hard rinded squash...I have found that it takes just as much time to steam 1 as four, so I usually just get them done and in the freezer. Spaghetti squash will last 4 or 5 months...but they are just not one of those squashes that will keep a year.