A few weeks ago I received an acorn squash in the produce box. You know me, I would have just chopped it up and roasted it. But I decided to roast it and stuff it. Just like the pumpkin. I had a friend visit the day I received it and when I told her that I was going to stuff it she asked me, “So you just eat the inside?” Nope. Once you roast it, the outside . . . the skin, cooks up to a tender edible state. So we just eat it. We did the same thing with the pumpkin. It is actually difficult to believe until you do it. Of course, once you cook it you can always opt NOT to eat the skin, but why not? It becomes really tender. So anyway, I used the same recipe as the stuffed pumpkin, so this post is kind of a repeat. The sugar pumpkin was much larger than the acorn squash. I wasn’t really sure how much of the mixture from the original recipe I was going to be able to use. So I cut the recipe in half . . . sort of.
I used the original amount of mushrooms and sausage. I wasn’t sure how it would cook up. So I just went with what I knew (seven mushrooms and 1/4 pound of sausage). At the point when the sausage and mushrooms were done cooking and mixed together, that is when I decided I only needed half of it. So half of it went into the fridge for another meal before I added any of the other ingredients. But I used the same amount of herbs . . . a little less cream and one less piece of bread. The recipe below is the ADJUSTED one.
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Stuffed Acorn Squash
1 1 pound Acorn Squash
some olive oil
salt
three mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1/8 pound sausage
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 cup cheese (small chunks)
2 tbsp ricotta
1 tbsp sherry
less than 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
handful of spinach
three slices bread – toasted and cubed
Wash the squash since you are planning on eating the entire thing! Cut the acorn squash in half. Scoop out the seeds. Rub a little oil in the acorn squash and on the outside, salt inside and out, then place the halves – cut side down – on some aluminum foil on a baking sheet. Bake at 350° F for 45 minutes (check it after 20 minutes to see if you want to flip it over or not – up to you. It depends on how cooked the edges are getting.) After the 45 minutes you want it to be cooked, but not cooked so much it can’t stand another 45 minutes to an hour in the oven).
Heat some olive oil in a pan with 1/2 of the chopped onion. Once the onions are translucent put the mushrooms in the pan and cook them. Sprinkle with salt. As they are cooking mix in one clove of garlic. Cook the sausage, either after the mushrooms are cooked or use a different pan. If the sausage has a lot of grease drain it off before you add the sausage to the rest of the ingredients.
Mix the mushrooms and the sausage in a bowl. Add the rosemary and thyme. Mix in the remaining two cloves of garlic and the onions. Mix in the cheese. Mix in the sherry. Pour a small amount of cream into each acorn half. Then use more cream to moisten the rest of the ingredients. As the list of ingredients state I used less than 1/4 cup. I did not use the full 1/4 cup. Add the spinach and bread cubes last. Mix it all carefully.
Spoon the mixture into the pumpkin. I used the spoon to press the mixture down into each half. I really pressed the ingredients in because I wanted it all to fit. Then on my half I put most of the left-over-from-the-handful of spinach.
Put the squash in the oven for 45 minutes. After about 20 minutes check on it. The squash is done when you can gently pierce its side with a sharp object. Check to verify the inside is cooked to your liking. Since the mushrooms and the sausage are already cooked it is just a matter of it heating up, melting the cheese, and letting all the flavors blend.
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I served it with a green salad. But we have salad pretty much every night.
This was good. I liked it. It was not as good as the Sugar Pumpkin, though. My husband said it was as good, but I don’t think so. I think the sugar pumpkin had a better flavor. The pumpkin itself added to the dish. The acorn squash tasted like squash. Which is fine, I like squash, but it didn’t help kick this dish out of the park!
As I said, this is exactly like the stuffed pumpkin except it is an acorn squash. But I did want to document the adjustments. 🙂
I am learning a lot of people don’t like winter squash. Do you? What type of winter squash do you like? Have you ever cooked with a sugar pumpkin (besides making a pie)?
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