Me and Acorn Squash Down by the Schoolyard

Last night I had an evening rendezvous with a Mr. Acorn Squash, and he fulfilled my needs in three ways, let me tell you...

Remember my query about the acorn squash I needed to use or lose? Oh, I used it. And how!

First, I halved the squash, scooped out the seeds/stringy crap, and threw it in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes until tender. Afterwards, I let it cool and then scooped out the flesh.

While the squash was in the oven, I cleaned the seeds, dried them off and tossed them with olive oil, paprika, garlic powder, a little cumin and a pinch of salt. They went onto a foil-lined cookie sheet and into a 350 degree oven after the squash was done. Cooking time was about 15-20 minutes. Once it gets to the 15-minute mark, you really have to watch them. I think I heard a few -POP- in the oven.

My intentions for Mr. Squash were pure, so I set about to bake something sweet. I adapted an omni recipe that I found on recipelink.com for Acorn Squash Bread. Here's what I came up with:

1 1/2 cups AP flour

1 cup turbinado sugar

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (it actually says 1/2 tsp. each of cinnamon AND nutmeg, but since I didn't have nutmeg, I used pumpkin pie spice for both)

1 cup cooked, mashed acorn squash

2 Ener-G "eggs"

1/4 cup Earthbalance "butter," melted

Combine the first seven ingredients and incorporate together in a bowl.

Combine squash, "eggs" and "butter" and mix together. Add the wet mix to the dry mix and stir until blended (or do all of this in a mixer...). Pour mixture into a greased and floured 9"x 5"x 3" loaf pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until your toothpick comes out clean.

Mixer in Action.

Me and My First Loaf Ever!

(That's The Hubs' Tuna Salad in the food processor, ick...)

Zombie Baker Cookie Cutter Approves.

I brought most of the bread to work this morning (it's a good breakfast bread), and the coworkers DEVOURED it.

Since the bread recipe only used one cup of mashed acorn squash, I was in a pickle as to what else I would make using the rest. So I made a pasta sauce!

I kind of winged it...Into the food processor went:

rest of mashed squash

1 clove garlic, torn apart

1/2 container (12oz?) Silken firm tofu

oregano

basil

pinch of S & P

Frank's Red Hot Sauce (I actually put a lot of this in, maybe like a tablespoon?)

about 1/8 cup melted Earthbalance (leftover from cake recipe--waste not, want not)

splash of soy sauce

Whir this all together until it's combined into creamy goodness in your food processor. The longer I kept it on, the creamier it got. Looked kind of like a buttery hollandaise sauce:

I plated the pasta and topped it with the scrumptious, spicy roasted acorn squash seeds. The Hubs doesn't eat squash at all and only eats tofu if it's fried to a crisp, but he tried this and was over the flippin' moon about the combo of the sauce with seeds.

So ended my affair with Mr. Acorn Squash. Perhaps we'll pick it up again soon, but I'm pretty squashed out after last night...

Jes