Vegan's Day

Stuffed Acorn Squash

The winter season has come and gone without me trying to make stuffed acorn squash. It's been on my 'to-do list' of dishes to try, so I figured that I had better attempt this thing before I can no longer find them at the markets and have to wait for them to come back in season. I looked up a bunch of recipes online, and modified them according to what I have available. It actually turned out a lot better than I expected. Quite tasty indeed, since it has so many spices in it. Next time I might just omit the raisins cuz they were a bit too sweet for me.

Stuffed Squash

{Ingredients}
1 squash
1 cup brown rice (I didn't have wildrice)
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 cup diced celery (I included the celery leaves)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (or any nuts)
1/5 cup raisins or cranberries (optional)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
pinch of black pepper

{Method}
1. Cook rice
2. Chop squash into half, or into quarters and scrape out seeds and stringies. Place cut side down on lightly oiled baking sheet, place in oven at 170C for about 30 mins - you're going to cook it about half-way though.
2. Heat oil in skillet, cook onions until soft, then add celery. Cook together, then take off heat and empty into a large bowl.
3. Add rice, nuts, raisins, spices into the same bowl and mix together.
4. Take squash out of oven and spoon some of it out to add to the rice mixture (don't spoon too much to puncture the squash though). Stuff the rice mixture into the squash "bowl," as much as you want.
5. Cover with aluminum foil and place back in oven for another 20-30 mins, until squash is completely cooked.
6. Enjoy!

Now I know what I'll be cooking for next Thanksgiving! Hm, maybe I'll go bake a pumpkin pie now...