Whenever I cook acorn squash, I either cut it in half and bake upside down in a pan with some water. Once it is cooked, I turn it over and fill the inside with brown sugar and butter, somehow turning this healthy vegetable into a dessert! I was curious how it would taste without all that butter and sugar, and came up with the idea of stuffing it. I was going to use rice as a base, but I had some pearl couscous left over and decided that might just work. This couscous also had pine nuts in it, as well as some Parmesan cheese...perfect!
I cut the squash in half, painted them with melted butter and sprinkled
some salt and pepper on them. I baked them in the oven for about 20
minutes, until they were tender.
To make the stuffing, I cooked up some chopped onion. Just before it was done, I chopped and added a few Bella mushrooms I had in the fridge, as well as two cloves of garlic. Shut off the heat and add some fresh spinach.
I found about a cup full of leftover roasted green beans, so I cut those up and added them! I thought some fresh mozzarella would add some interesting texture, so I cut some up and folded that in. Another leftover I had was lamb shanks. I diced up what I had and threw that in. Obviously not everyone has lamb shanks on hand, so you could add possibly bacon bits or some cut up ham if you wanted to.
Spoon the stuffing mixture into the acorn squash, top with some shredded mozzarella cheese and back into the 350 oven for another 15-20 minutes.
This was a great idea after all!
No comments:
Post a Comment