Stuffed Acorn Squash, the best dinner everrr

...and it truly was, the title is no exaggeration.

Gotta give it to trusty good ol' TJ for providing in-season products, and I picked up an acorn squash not too long ago. I'm pretty adventurous to begin with, so I would've gotten this even if I didn't have a recipe in mind, but this time, the moment I saw these globes of autumn harvest, I immediately thought of the recent video from Hot for Food of their recipe for Stuffed Acorn Squash (they also have the full recipe on their blog, check it out!). The couple who runs this Youtube channel and blog are from Canada (apparently Thanksgiving is in early October over there, which was the theme of this recipe), and they post a lot of yummy vegan recipes and cook-off challenges that are fun to watch... and I usually just leave it at that-- just watch their videos on my phone in bed after flipping through some more things on social media that I really shouldn't be doing right before bedtime. I'm usually not big on following recipes verbatim, but this time I actually wanted to try it out (although, even with this, I kind of tweaked it a bit to suit my taste better).

So below is a picture of my marvelous creation in the kitchen (and yes, this deserved pictures taken from three different angles):

Mmmmmm, just looking at these is making my hungry again! A bonus to making this dish is that after you're done baking/putting everything together, your room will be filled with a warm, savory aroma that will remind you once again of why you like this wonderful season of sweater weather.

In terms of how I made it, I pretty much followed the same instructions from Hot for Food on how to bake the acorn squash (one thing that I would adjust next time is extend the baking time in the oven-- it might be because my oven is old and not the best, but 40 min at 400 F didn't quite make it as soft and browned as I would have liked). 

Also, I forgot to get maple syrup during my last groceries run, so I subbed with agave nectar instead. So the basting for the acorn squash was basically melted vegan butter (I used Earth Balance) mixed with agave nectar... I think I might just use this for everything from now on, because it is SO good! You spread that on the fleshy parts of both halves of the acorn squash. The seeds and stringy parts of the squash that I pulled out earlier were also baked all nice and crunchy-- I used some to top the dish like the recipe suggested, and I saved that rest for snacking later.

The filling is what I tweaked for my own taste. Rather than using brown rice as the base of the stuffing, I opted to use quinoa instead (it's fluffier and lighter than rice, so I figured this would leave more room for veggies). I also included diced sweet potatoes, corn, peas, and string beans cut into small pieces. Along with the flesh scooped out from the squash earlier, I cook all of these veggies and quinoa together in the same vegan butter + agave nectar mixture, with sprinkles of salt, black pepper, garlic powder, cinnamon, ginger, and thyme. The finished stuffing was so good by itself already, I didn't feel the need to include the red wine cranberry sauce that the original recipe calls for... the idea of mixing something sweet like cranberry sauce with savory food never really appealed to me. I know most people like it though, and it is a very big part of Thanksgiving, so whatever floats your boat! *shrugs*

Assembly is easy: after taking out the baked acorn squash from the oven, fill each half with the stuffing and top with the toasted seeds. One half was dinner, the other half is tomorrow's dinner, and the leftover stuffing made just enough to pack for lunch tomorrow as well. See how many meals you can make out of one veggie dish?! Not to mention it's super filling-- I felt like I turned into the stuffed acorn squash after finishing the one half :P But not to worry, it isn't fattening by all means! Since it's not made with anything heavy, you digest it within the standard 3-4 hours it takes to digest most food in general.

Since the main character of this dish is acorn squash, below are some nutritional facts and benefits of eating this nutrient-dense fruit (that's right, like tomatoes and avocados, this is also technically classified as a fruit):

Another thing I'd like to note before closing this post is that this one thing of acorn squash at TJ's was only $2.99. This dish yielded 3 full meals, and it is tasty just as much as it is healthy. The reason why I put emphasis on the cost of the main ingredient is because I had a conversation with someone recently about how one of the reasons she never considered going vegan is because she thought it would be expensive. I have no idea where she got that notion from, because meat actually costs a whole lot more than any other non-meat food product I know of. Unless you're getting cheap ground meat, hot dogs, or processed deli meats (which are full of nitrates and terrible for you), each pack of packaged chicken, pork, or beef is almost always priced in the $6-$12 range for an amount that will only yield a meal or two for you. Egg prices have also gone up and it's very rare to find a carton under $3 nowadays (of course, I'm speaking for my area, this may not necessarily apply to other places). 

Also, most people don't realize it due to lack of education in the area of food source and knowing where/how your food gets to your table, but it actually costs a TON more to produce meat in general. The amount of feed and water that is given to cows, pigs, chickens, lambs, goats (list all other animals raised and killed for meat here) is such an absurd amount compared to the amount of meat that these animals actually yield. The parts that butchers cut out for meat from slaughtered animals is really only about a fourth of the whole animal-- the rest of the body parts are discarded with no other use. Also, you may not want to know it, but there has been proven evidence in more than one meat production farm where these discarded meat by-products are fed back to the other farm animals, mixed into their feed to reduce the cost of feeding them with grains. Gross, don't you think? There has to be a negative chain effect from these animals that consume the garbage bits of meat, and people who then consume these animals in the form of meat. It's also kind of disturbing to think that animals like chickens, cows, lambs, and other natural herbivores that are supposed to have a plant-based diet are being fed meat products.

Not to mention, from the perspective of pure calculations, why are we investing with so much input, when the output does not amount to as much as we put in? We could be saving all those grains for a better use: perhaps those grains could be made into food for people in many parts of the world to save them from death by starvation. Instead, we use it to force feed farm animals locked in tight-fitting crates filled with their own excrement, only so that we can eat these sources of "protein" that we don't necessarily need to sustain ourselves.

Just another food for thought... stemming from what was supposed to be a simple post about a new recipe that I tried. Regardless, give the acorn squash a try! Let the autumn food themes (and increased awareness on conscious living) continue onward...