Stuffed squash with a North African twist

Looking for a simple lunch the other day, I found an acorn squash in the pantry.
While I made a non-veg meal for my sweetie, I cut the squash in half, sprayed it with some oil and put it in the oven to bake at 350 degrees. I figured that even if I didn’t think of something spectacular to do with the pretty orange-fleshed gourd, I’d have a tasty meal if all I did was sprinkle it with some pepper and some Pepper-Jack cheese.
But I felt like I wanted to be a bit more creative.
While it was baking, I whipped up a bit of couscous. (A basic stuffing can’t get any easier than couscous and it takes less than 10 minutes from start to finish.)
Those two ingredients would be perfect together, but something more was needed to round it all out.
One of things I like best about cooking is the experimentation. Sometimes you end up with a mess, but more often you end up with something unexpected that tastes so good, you just have to write it down so you can recreate the dish on another day.
Once, when the kids were small, Genevieve and a friend mixed together some whipped cream, some chocolate and about half a shaker of salt (plus a variety of other ingredients I have made myself forget). I wanted to make them eat that mess as a lesson in not wasting food, but I didn’t have the heart to do it so we ended up dumping the blob into the back corner of the yard. Later we saw a raccoon go to the corner, sniff their creation and run away. The girls decided that if a raccoon wouldn’t eat it, it must have been bad.
This recipe that I put together with the acorn squash and couscous would be a feast for a raccoon or anyone else.
Couscous-stuffed Acorn Squash
1 acorn squash, cut in half and sprayed with oil
Pepper to taste
1/2 cup of white wine or water
1 teaspoon of oil
1/3 cup of couscous
1 small tomato, cut into tiny pieces
¼ of a red onion, cut into thin strips
½ of a zucchini, cut into tiny pieces

  • Put the acorn squash, cut side up, in a 350 degree oven and bake for half an hour.

  • Meanwhile bring the wine (or water) to a boil with the oil, pour in the couscous. Mix in the veggies, stir well, cover and leave it alone for five minutes.

  • Put about half of the couscous in each portion of the squash.

Vegan.

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