It's summer squash season....stuffed squash

I haven't had the opportunity to post my cooking in awhile as Tom has not had to travel too much! Tom will have a busy few months of travel so I shall be back at it again.  Last night I took advantage of the start of summer squash season.  Every week in the summer I go to our local farmer's market in the west end and buy vegetables for the week.  This week I knew I would be cooking on my own and thought I would make another attempt at stuffed round squash.  I have tried a few times but still knew I needed to work on timing and stuffing choices.  Let's start with preparation.  You can go two ways with preparing the stuffed round  squash.  You can cut the top or halve the squash.  I went with cutting the squash in half.  I thought that this might help with cook time.  

I used a spoon to scrap out the squash pulp.  These squash had a lot of seeds so I chose not to incorporate into the stuffing.  You can easily blend or mash the pulp to add back into the stuffing.  

For my stuffing I went with one chicken sausage, about a tablespoon of diced red onion, ~1/4 of shredded cheese, ~1 tablespoon hot pepper.  I wasn't super pleased with the stuffing but I did like incorporating the sausage.  I think I need a little more spice to up the flavor a notch!  The key is to have cheese and/or panko in your stuffing to ensure it stays together while cooking. You can get pretty creative with the stuffing.  I hope to be able to test out more options as the summer goes on!

 

I set our small over to 350 degrees and put the squash in for ~45 mins.  You will want to make sure that the squash has started to soften a bit and your stuffing has browned.   I served with black beans and rice.