Stuffed acorn squash

I have a huge weakness for winter squash. Even though it is not winter time and squash prices are jacked up, I will often have a moment where I get to the check-out lane, and somehow a squash has magically appeared in my cart. Butternut, acorn, spaghetti... you name it. Winter squash is such a comfort food.

Sundays are the day I often do a lot of cooking. It's the day I make bread. It's the day I always have stir-fry for dinner. It's the day I've made pasta from scratch. For a while when I was student teaching, it was the day I'd make my lunches for the week.

Today, I decided to use an acorn squash I recently purchased and make some sort of stuffed squash recipe. I've made similar ones before, but this one came entirely out of my own mind. It's very easily modifiable for your own taste preferences.


Here's what you'll need:

Tools:

• Paring knife
• Metal spoon
• Small casserole dish
• Stove pot with lid
• Small bowl for holding squash guts (I used a measuring cup here. There is no reason it needs to be a measuring cup)
• Small container for marinating tofu (I started taking pictures after I started marinating the tofu. Oops)
• Frying pan (not pictured)

Ingredients:

• Acorn squash
• Rice (I used white simply because that's what I had. Wild rice for this recipe would be PERFECT)
• Frozen block of firm tofu
• Pineapple chunks
• Craisins (can use raisins or another small tart fruit)
• Soy sauce
• Lemon juice
• Agave (honey works fine too, but agave makes this a fully vegan recipe :D)
• Ginger (fresh or ground, but with fresh, make sure you sautee it first)
• Sesame seeds

Most of these ingredients I have in my cupboards at all times.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350

If you've never worked with tofu before, it's not too hard to use. After you open it, you can refrigerate it for a few days if you submerge it in water (and change the water daily). You can also freeze it. Frozen tofu turns yellow, and this is okay. Defrost it, and it will have the consistency of a sponge. Remove as much of the water as you can by gently squeezing it. 

Make your marinade. I used equal parts soy sauce, agave, and lemon juice, combined with sesame seeds and ginger. This is similar to the sauce used on sesame chicken. Place the thawed tofu in the marinade, turn it over so all sides are coated, and place in the refrigerator.

 Slice the acorn squash vertically in half. It should look like the picture (though hopefully a bit yellower than the crappy lighting in the picture shows!).

With your spoon, scrape out the guts and seeds. Place them in the bowl you grabbed for them, since the seeds can be roasted and enjoyed :) (Alas, a recipe for another day. Find a recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds and use these)

I like to make monster noises as I scrape out the insides.

Place the squash cut-side up in your casserole pan. I only did half the squash today, but you can do both halves (may need to add 10 minutes or so to the cooking time then). Add about half an inch of warm water to the bottom of the pan to allow for more even cooking of the squash. Place it in the oven and take note of the time. It will take about 40 minutes. It's ready to come out when it's fork-tender.

Meanwhile, make rice. A few tips here: use half as much rice as liquid. Pictured is half a cup of rice, and that was more than enough for me. Bring the water to a boil, add the rice, cut the heat to a simmer, and place the lid on top. DO NOT OPEN THE LID AS THE RICE COOKS. It can take anywhere from 16-20 minutes, and you know it's done when it looks like the picture: no water, only drastically-grown rice.

As the rice is cooking, take your tofu out of the refrigerator. Turn again to coat, and dice. Add this (and remaining marinade) to a frying pan. Also throw in the pineapple chunks with their juice. I used about 1/4 of the large can I had. Fry for about 4 minutes.

When the pineapple starts to look a little browned, add the cranberries and fry for a couple more minutes so all is heated through. Feel free to sample throughout :)

Stir the fried mixture in with the rice. Because my timing was slightly off with my squash, I kept the lid on this pan and let it sit for about 10 minutes until my squash finished.

Carefully remove the squash from the oven after 40 minutes (or so). Dry the bottom of the squash and put on a plate. Using your spoon, fill the squash with as much of the rice mixture as you'd like! Mine was overflowing :)





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I received word this morning that a friend of mine (a die-hard sweet potato hater) tried my recipe and LOVED it. Comment on the posts if you end up trying my recipes and how they turned out for you!

-QV