You're welcome for this recipe though :)
Before you can get to that amazing stuffed piece of wonderful you have to do a little bit of work.
Start by making yourself a cup of Cinnamon Tea- I am OBSESSED.
It's like Christmas and warm happy feelings in a cup, really now what more could you want?
The cinnamon will get your metabolism moving and help pump up your muscles so you can chop open some acorn squash.
And then gut those squashs' and sprinkle them with some spices.
Done with the hard part! On to the snacking.
My favorite part about making recipes with apples is that I can snack on them while I'm cooking. Speaking of cooking let's get to that recipe.
Maple Apple Quinoa Stuffed Acorn Squash
Ingredients:
2-3 Acorn Squash
½-1 tbsp Coconut Oil
1 cup dry Quinoa
2 cups water
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp ginger and ground cloves
2 medium sweet apples, cubed
1 cup cooked Chickpeas
½ cup Craisins
¾ -1 cup Ricotta
2 tbsp maple syrup
~1 tsp Brown Sugar
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut squash in half and rub with coconut oil and sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg. Bake for 30 minutes.
2. While the squash bakes rinse the quinoa and add to a medium pot with the water, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves. Cook until water is all gone or the quinoa is done
2. Add the cubed apples, chickpeas, craisins, and maple syrup to the mixture. Next add Ricotta cheese until desired creaminess/cheesiness. Stir well.
3. Stuff the quinoa mixture into the baked acorn squash. Sprinkle the top with brown sugar. Bake for 20-25 minutes. (until apples are slightly mushy).
4. Optional: Top with roasted acorn squash seeds! I tossed mine in coconut oil, cinnamon, and nutmeg and baked them for about 15 minutes alongside the baking acorn squash.
5. Enjoy!
This is what my stuffing looked like. I only used 2 acorn squash's so I had some extra filling left. It'll be a lunch sometime this week and it was already snacked on majorly while I waited for the stuffed squash to bake.
Other things to do while you wait for the final product...clean up the massive mess you made. (For some reason I was super scatterbrained today and there was cinnamon EVERYWHERE in my kitchen...oops!)
The mess is well worth it...
The chickpeas are perfect in this recipe, they really balance out the sweetness of the apple, craisins and maple syrup. And do I even need to talk about the squash? I could probably eat squash plain for the rest of my life and be happy.
For some reason I struggled with taking good pictures of this squash. Oh well you win some you lose some I guess.
Overall I am extremely pleased with this recipe! The flavors are complex and interesting and it's also super filling. (Wow judging by that sentence my level of food nerdiness is steadily rising...) I only made it a couple days late though, it would have been perfect as a main dish for Thanksgiving. That's what next year is for though.
Alright well I really need to get back to school work now. I'm giving a presentation on Zero Tolerance Laws in schools tonight, exciting huh? Not so much. But I am happy to say that my Spanish test today went soo smooth I was the first one done and actually thought it was easy! Fingers crossed that I actually did well!
There was a slight downfall in my day so far though...while my ceramics professor was glazing my stacked pot for me (yes he did part of it for me- great success!) I got splashed in the mouth and eye with glaze!! Sick. I don't know if I'm just a worrier but I swear my eye hurts...my hypochondriac self might be making a trip to the quick clinic today...
What are you stressing about this week? Or are you having a carefree and stress free week?
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