Vegetable or Dessert?

[Ridgerunner]

Take an acorn squash. Slice it in half and clean it. Bake it at 325 cut side down in a pan with 1/4" of water for 45 minutes.

In the meantime, dice and apple and a pear or two. Mix in two tablespoons of brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg. Some grated orange zest is optional. Brown the fruit mixture in 2 tablespoons of butter for 5 minutes. Add 1/4 cup of apple cider or orange juice and continue cooking until the fruit is tender, suggested time 8 more minutes. Stir it a lot while browning and cooking.

Drain the water from the baking pan. Turn the squash over and fill with the fruit mixture. Bake until tender. Recommendation was 15 more minutes but that was not nearly enough. It wound up in the microwave for several minutes covered so it would stay moist.

Do you consider this a vegetable or dessert? For the record, we called it vegetable.

I did not have an acorn squash, but I did have a squash that I grew from last years seeds. I was a cross between a Lakota and an Acorn.

 

[HiDelight]

just beautiful! wow I can smell it now

there are some wonderful things about fall you know!

 

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

That sounds delicious! I'm going to make one like that for hubby. I prefer my acorn squash with salt and pepper and some butter, but hubby likes his with butter and brown sugar baked in. Your recipe sounds like something he will really enjoy!

 

[Rosalind]

Vegetable for sure.

Everyone knows that vegetables are healthy and good for you and have virtually no real calories that count in any dieting sense of the word, and that dessert is a terrible thing which rots your teeth and has only empty calories to make you fat.

In this rationale, cheesecake is full of healthful calcium and protein.

 

[lareepqg]

I say both!

 

[obsessed]

How does the the mixed squash taste? I am so into squash but have three failed attempts this year do to the vine borer!!! I may actually get a chemical next year.

 

[Ridgerunner]

How does the the mixed squash taste? .

It tasted very good. Flavor was great. Possibly because of the size, it took a long time to cook it and get it tender. The stem end was very thick.

Productivity was not good. The vines ran all over the place, but I only got two squash out of four vines. I saved the seeds out of a Lakota and had no idea what it may have crossed with. It's pretty obvious it crossed with an acorn.

I had this, delicata, and butternut this year. I'll probably save seeds from the delicata and see what happens next year. Due to the lack of productivity, I will not use seeds from this mix. If you want some I'd be glad to send them to you, but I'll try the delicata myself.

 

[obsessed]

No thanks but thanks for the offer. I am quite disappointed that I so many seeds that I bought from SSE and Bakers Creek but had three failed attempts and squash this year. The vine borers just killed everything.