Where book clubs find discussion and delicious recipes for favorite books!

Chorizo and Ricotta Stuffed Summer Squash

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For this post, I provide you with a delicious recipe for Chorizo and Ricotta Stuffed Summer Squash!

If you’ve never had stuffed summer squash, I am glad you are here! This recipe is absolutely delicious, pretty easy to make, and a great summer dish.

While stuffed squash of many varieties have become popular over the last few years, this recipe, which combined chorizo, ricotta, and parmesan for the stuffing is so rich and tasty.

If you’re stopping by here while searching for recipes, you may not know that the recipes here are all inspired by books! This particular recipe was created after reading Elizabeth is Missing.

In the novel, an elderly woman with dementia tries to solve both a current and a decades-old disappearance.

If you love reading, check out more about this great book HERE!

While this recipe calls for summer squash, if you are making this in the fall or winter and struggling to find the pictured variety of squash, try acorn, zucchini, or even spaghetti squash for a twist.

This dish was light, but also filling. And the unique flavors combine to create a warm and comforting dish that’s absolutely delectable.

Elizabeth is Missing Book Club Food Ideas

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For Elizabeth is Missing, I provide your book club with a brief summary, food ideas, and a recipe idea in that order!

Elizabeth is Missing Book Club Questions and Recipe

If you haven’t checked out the previous post in the series where I share my thoughts on Elizabeth is Missing and a fun activity idea for your book club, check out that post HERE.

You can also check out the next post in the series where I share discussion questions for your book club based on the book HERE.

In this post, I’ll review the premise of Elizabeth is Missing and share some great food ideas for your book club based on the book.

Here’s a brief summary of Elizabeth is Missing:

In present day England, Maud is slowly losing her memory and her independence, but she won’t let it stop her from finding out exactly where her best friend, Elizabeth, has gone. Certain that Elizabeth is in grave danger, she resolves to find her despite the fact that no one–not her daughter or son, not the police, nor Elizabeth’s son–will listen to her.

Armed with notes to jog her memory, Maud delves deeper into the mystery of Elizabeth’s whereabouts, but the clues seem to lead her further and further into the past, to the disappearance of her sister, Sukey, shortly after WWII.

As Maud’s memories from over fifty years before come back with renewed clarity, Sukey’s disappearance and Elizabeth’s intersect in unexpected ways.

Keep reading for great food ideas for your book club!

Looking for your next great read? Check out these similar books…

Elizabeth is Missing Food Ideas:

Elizabeth is Missing is a novel with so much food mentioned that it was a little hard to get everything down! I love books with lots of sensory details like smells and tastes of food. Don’t you?

Here are a few food ideas from the pages of Elizabeth is Missing:

Chapter 1 – Maud goes to the store and once again buys too many cans of peach slices
Chapter 2 – Maud and Helen eat at the Olive Grill where Maud reads the menu aloud – French onion soup, Tomato-and-mozarella salad, Garlic mushrooms, Parma ham and melon, and finally asks about Chorizo-stuffed summer squash
Chapter 3 – Maud’s father brings home hot fish and chips with vinegar for what will be the last family meal with Sukey
Chapter 6 – Maud wants some toast and a boiled egg and forgets she’s left the gas on at the stove
Chapter 9 – Maud falls ill after Sukey’s disappearance and eats thin soup with dry toast or creamed rice until she’s strong enough for a mutton chop
Chapter 9 – Maud stews apples and tries to steam open a letter from Sukey to Douglas
Chapter 17 – The mad woman’s salad that she had been gathering when she died – stripped hawthorn twigs, red nasturtium flowers, brooklime and dandelion leaves, honeysuckle, watercress and lemon balm and a squash flower
Chapter 18 – Maud, her mother, Douglas, and Frank all make blackberry jam together

In case you are new here, for almost every book I create a companion recipe in addition to listing all the food options from the pages of the novel.

For Elizabeth is Missing, I reviewed the many possibilities and finally settled on chorizo stuffed summer squash because summer squash played such a large role in the book.

Almost every character talks about summer squash in one way or another throughout the book and since chorizo-stuffed summer squash is specifically mentioned in the restaurant scene with Helen, I thought it would be a perfect choice.

Living in Texas, chorizo is easy to find at the local grocery. However if you can’t find it near you, you can substitute it for an Italian crumbled sausage.

If you’d like to make something with peaches or blackberries, check out this recipe for peaches and cream cookies and this one for cream cheese brownies with blackberry swirl!

For the complete Chorizo Stuffed Summer Squash recipe, click HERE!

More…

In addition to the full recipe, this series of posts for Elizabeth is Missing also includes ten book club questions curated just for book clubs. You can find Book Club Questions for Elizabeth is Missing by clicking HERE.

And you can find a fun activity for your book club HERE!

Have you read Elizabeth is Missing? What did you think? Did it satisfy you or were you left wishing for more? What are some similar books you’ve read?

Until next time, Happy Reading!

Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. In the event of a sale, I will be awarded a small commission (at no extra cost to you or the featured book’s author). All opinions are 100% mine and every book, unless otherwise noted, is handpicked by me to be featured on the site.

Other Books that you might enjoy!

The Four Winds Book Club Questions and Food Ideas

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For The Four Winds, I provide your book club with a brief summary, food ideas, and discussion questions in that order!

While Kristin Hannah has been writing books for over two decades, you may recognize her best from her massive hit, The Nightingale, or the book she published just after, The Great Alone.

With The Nightingale, Hannah pivoted from writing women’s fiction to writing more literary or book club fiction. While the three categories are sometimes hard to delineate, Hannah has found major popularity with her latest works all of which contain historical timelines.

Her latest work, The Four Winds, is no different. Inspired by the Dust Bowl and migrants who left the plains for California, The Four Winds is another sweeping historical by Hannah.

If you don’t know, there is some long debated controversy surrounding John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (which Hannah’s The Four Winds echoes). At the time, another writer, a woman named Sanora Babb was researching and writing her own novel about the Dust Bowl and Depression. Steinbeck seems to have come upon her notes and there is claim they largely influenced his novel, which sold truck fulls more than Babb’s.

In a way, the already hugely popular The Four Winds gives Babb some justice. Hannah speaks often of using Babb’s research in her own writing.

Arancini with Pancetta and Garlic Sauce

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For this post, I provide you with a delicious recipe for Arancini with Pancetta and Garlic Sauce!

If you’ve never had arancini, I am glad you are here!

Arancini is a traditional Italian dish consisting of fried rice balls. Made with risotto, sometimes the arancini have peas or mozzarella inside. For this recipe, I included the mozzarella, but omitted the peas.

Crispy on the outside and soft and rich on the inside, arancini is a filling and delicious dish that is best served with tomato sauce.

If you’re stopping by here while searching for recipes, you may not know that the recipes here are all inspired by books! This particular recipe was created after reading The Four Winds.

The Four Winds is Kristin Hannah’s novel about a woman struggling to keep her family farm afloat during the Dust Bowl and her ultimate decision to move to California in hopes of a better future. Reminiscent of the Grapes of Wrath, The Four Winds is an epic tale of survivorship against great odds. If you love reading, check out more about this great book HERE!

This recipe for Arancini combines rich risotto, melty mozzarella, crispy panko, and a delicious garlic and pancetta sauce.

The flavors combine to create a warm and comforting dish that’s absolutely delectable.

The Book of Lost Friends Book Club Questions and Recipe

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For The Book of Lost Friends, I provide your book club with food ideas, a recipe, and discussion questions in that order!

In The Book of Lost Friends, Lisa Wingate conquers another fascinating, yet obscure, piece of American history. Not to be confused with The Book of Lost Names, which came out around the same time and centers on a WWII story (and is also fascinating), The Book of Lost Friends is a post-Civil War era novel.

This is another dual-timeline novel by Wingate. It follows Hannie, a freed slave, as she travels through post-war Texas in search of her people and attempts to return home to Louisiana, and Benny, a modern-day teacher, struggling to inspire her students until she unearths a history that links them to Hannie and much more.

I have to say that as much as I enjoyed Before We Were Yours, Wingate’s last book, I almost enjoyed The Book of Lost Friends more.

I really loved the post-Civil War timeline (Civil War era is one of my personal favorites), coupled with the struggling teacher timeline. If you are or have ever been a teacher, I think you will love Benny’s story. It echoes the teacher-trying-to-inspire-underpriveleged-kids theme that we’ve seen in many movies, but I thought the tie-in to the Civil War timeline made it fresh. Plus, I’m a sucker for those movies anyway.

This novel wasn’t as dark as Before We Were Yours was (due to its subject). And, while there was still adventure and drama and not every character got a complete happily-ever-after, it was overall an upbeat novel. So, if you’re looking for something inspiring and positive to read as a group, I think you will enjoy this novel.