We are having a bit of avatar fun over at Twitter, my baking/cooking pals and I, just to shake things up a bit and confuse everyone each month as to who is who and all. Nancy came up with the great idea of each of us picking a different chef for each month, all of us making anything we each selected to make from that chef's recipes, taking a photo of our efforts, and using that photo as our avatar for that month.
October's avatar chef is Mark Bittman, chosen by Abby. The recipe I chose was his recipe for Stuffed Acorn Squash. I tried to find the recipe online for you all, but it turns out that he has dozens of baked acorn squash recipes, each slightly different, so I will post what I used for this one.
I own one Mark Bittman cookbook, How to Cook Everything, and it is just full of recipes (about 2,000 of them) that are user-friendly and delicious. When I am looking around at 5:00 p.m. for what to make for dinner, this book comes off the shelf as I always find something that I have ingredients for, or that he tells me how to sub ingredients for, a big help on a weekly basis! This squash was a spur of the moment decision (at 5:23 p.m. actually, needed for dinner at 6:30). I had been to a farmer's market and gotten some lovely squash this afternoon, I had everything else on hand for this recipe, and before 6:30 it was finished and ready for the table. Delicious, healthy, and definitely a repeat.
Stuffed Acorn Squash
Serves 2
1) Halve one smallish sized acorn squash (cut a small slice from the tip and bottom of the squash so they will sit firmly after they have been stuffed), scrape out the seeds, and rub the insides with a tiny bit of butter, roast (cut side down) at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.
2) In the meantime, caramelize one large onion (cut into thin slices) in a saute pan on the stove with 1 Tablespoon of butter and 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar.
3) When onions are caramelized, remove from heat, stir in 1/2 cup dried cranberries, 1/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans, the zest and juice of 1 orange.
4) When the squash has baked 25 minutes, remove from oven, flip the halves over, give them a little salt and freshly ground pepper and spoon the onion/cranberry/pecan filling into the squash cavities.
5) Put back into the oven and bake for another 20 minutes.
