Now, what is a poverty-induced vegetarian girl like me going to stuff this lovely squash with? Keeping in mind that I am also gluten-free, this narrows down my prospects. I'm thinking French green lentils and kasha with spinach. I have never cooked with kasha, in fact I don't know if I've ever tried kasha, but I bought it anyway. And thanks to wholegrainscouncil.org, I now know how to cook it. The website has an entire section dedicated to gluten-free whole grains, which I was very grateful for.
As I stated earlier, I love my fall flavors and will cut down all who oppose me. Luckily, lentils and kasha are flavor-neutral, so I can do whatever I please with them. I want savory, earthy, pungent, poultry-esque flavors.
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My spice cabinet never fails me. Fresh-ground black pepper, sea salt, sage, Herbes de Provence (bet you didn't see that one coming), and bay leaf. I also rounded up my aromatics of choice, shallot and garlic. This dish will not, under any circumstances, be made with flavorless water. I chose chicken broth, but for a truly vegetarian dish, vegetable broth is the way to go.
As necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention, I will also add the three free-range, organic brown eggs that cracked on the way home from the store. I really didn't want to waste those. All I need now is my unfiltered, cold-pressed, organic Greece olive oil and I'm good to go (the olive oil was way more affordable than I anticipated).
Now, before you start giving yourself excuses why you can't cook healthy food, like 'my kitchen is too small' or 'I don't have a very good stove', shut up and look at my kitchen:
This is my oven, which takes up about 25% of my counter space...
and this is my stove. So, shut up.
Time for the good stuff!
I started out by rinsing my lentils and checking for stones, etc.
Once they passed inspection, I chopped up my shallot and garlic. Next order of business? Heat up some olive oil in my pan. Warm olive oil smells amazing, just so you know.
Now, if the word 'pilaf' doesn't ring a bell, allow me to elaborate: pilaf is a method of cooking grains where you first toast the grains in a pan with some oil and aromatics before adding the liquid to finish cooking them. So, that's how I started the kasha:
I sauteed my shallots and garlic in the oil before adding the kasha. I only toasted it until I could smell the toasty goodness. I then added the lentils, sage, Herbes de Provence, pepper, and bay leaf, just until I could smell the sage get all yummy and fall-y. In with the broth. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover and let cook for 20 minutes. At this point, I took out the bay leaf and added my frozen spinach. Once that got to room temperature, I put in the eggs and mixed it all together. This is what it looked like:
To some, that may look like the stuff of nightmares, but to me, this swamp creature type concoction looks awesome. On to the squash! As benign and portable as acorn squash look, I found out that these little beasts are built to last, hence the long shelf life. I was several knife cuts and one piercing blow to the middle of the squash when I realized how desperately I need a hack saw. With no hardware in sight, I got my inner she-hulk on and did what I had to do - cut what I could, and rip the rest apart like a barbarian. Then I drizzled the halves with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and cracked black pepper.
I put a ridiculous amount of filling in each half and baked them for an hour. While basking in the glory of my first toaster oven success and the smell of Thanksgiving, I decided that I must adorn my success with Parmesan cheese. So I did:
I learned several lessons from this endeavor. Aside from the obvious lessons to be learned, I learned that the quantities I used to make this filling feeds at least four people. So, I got creative with leftovers. I threw all of the extra filling into a saucepan and added a small, two-serving carton of Pacific Natural Foods Butternut Squash Bisque to the mix. After letting it simmer for about 8 minutes, I had a bowl of tasty leftover stew for dinner...and twice as many leftovers. I put the rest of my stew-leftover mixture into an oiled up casserole dish, baked two sweet potatoes in the microwave, peeled and mashed them, and put it on top of the mixture in the casserole. Behold, tasty, autumnal shepherd's pie. I ate leftovers for the next three days.
So, here's the recipe for the Autumn Lentil Stuffed Acorn Squash the way I made it, just know that it feeds 4:
Autumn Lentil Stuffed Acorn Squash
1 (or 2) acorn squash, firm and undamaged skin
1/2 c. French green lentils, rinsed and drained, stones removed
1/2 c. uncooked kasha
1 shallot, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 eggs
1 1/2 c. chopped frozen spinach
1 T. olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 t. sea salt
1 t. cracked black pepper
1/2 t. Herbes de Provence
1/2 t. dried sage
1 bay leaf
3 c. chicken (or vegetable) broth
Parmesan cheese for grating (optional)
Preheat oven to 425*F. Wash skin of the acorn squash, dry, and split into 2 halves. Scoop out seeds and strings and discard. Place cut-side up on baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a 1/4 t. each of sea salt and black pepper. Set aside
Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute shallot and garlic until translucent, then add kasha to the pan, stirring frequently to avoid burning. Stir in Herbes de Provence, sage, remaining pepper, and bay leaf. Stir until kasha smells toasted, then add lentils. Stir to coat and slightly toast lentils. Add broth to pan, stirring as it comes to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 20 minutes, or until lentils are tender.
Remove from heat. Remove bay leaf and discard. Stir in salt and spinach. Once mixture cools to room temperature, add eggs and combine thoroughly. Place approximately 1-1 1/2 cups of filling mixture into prepared squash halves. Place in oven and bake for 60 minutes, or until squash is tender.
Remove from oven, grate Parmesan cheese over the tops of the filling, if desired. Serve hot. Makes great leftovers!
Well, there you have it. It took forever to finally post it, but here it is. As promised in my first post, this blog is going to be very real, complete with failures. Failure came in the form of a hasty, unplanned attempt at hot cereal. Oats, red quinoa, milk, grated apple, cinnamon. What could go wrong? EVERYTHING! The oats cooked too fast, the quinoa didn't cook at all, the apple wasn't sweet enough, and everything was terrible. Observe:
It tasted like a punishment. A punishment for not planning ahead. Prison food probably tastes better than this did. Failure of epic proportions.
My next post will be my breakfast atonement, in the form of pumpkin pie oatmeal. Oh, yes, that happened.
Happy munching!
