An acorn squash. I didn't even know what this was when I saw it in the grocery store. I wanted to try something new tonight, and I thought this looked pretty darn interesting.
I read that they are similar to sweet potatoes in taste and I LOVE sweet potatoes. Right then I knew I wanted to go in the sweet direction rather than savory. I was thinking maple syrup, brown sugar, and cinnamon. And then I saw a recipe that called for bacon. I knew I was on to something. I'm not a huge bacon fan but I could not resist this combination.
To start I cut the squash in half and scooped out all of the seeds. Then I drizzled them both with about 2 tbsp pure maple syrup. Next I cut a piece of bacon in half and placed them in each half. I really wanted the bacon juices to bake into the squash. Then I placed both face up in a baking pan with about an inch of water.
Here they are pre-oven (preheat to 415 degrees):
I let them bake just under an hour. It felt like forever. They smelled SO good. You could probably bake a little more or a little less. I just checked with a fork until they were soft enough. They came out looking beautiful - look at that bacon juice! As you can tell by all of the fork marks, I was a bit impatient and checked on them way too often.
I let the squash cool for about 5 mins and then scooped all of it into a bowl. I probably shoud've let it cool a little longer but again, I just could not wait to eat this stuff.
While the squash was in the oven, I put the bacon in a pan and got it nice and crispy. YUM.
Once the bacon was done I cut it up into small pieces and mixed it into the bowl with the squash. I added 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, another half tbsp of maple syrup, and salt to taste. Then I plopped this beautiful, bacony, sweet mash into a bowl and chowed down.
I cannot tell you how delicious all of these flavors were together. The bacon really added something, but the recipe would still be great (and very healthy) without it. It was the perfect fall meal!
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