Stuffed Acorn Squash

OK, so I watched a sort of cheesy chick flick over the weekend: Julie and Julia. It's about a woman who needs a change in her life and decides to cook her way through one of Julia Child's cookbooks (500 and some odd recipes) over the course of the year, and (this is the best part), she keeps a blog of her progress. Long story short, the blog ends up getting a lot of followers and good ol' Julie gets a book deal out of the whole thing. Every bloggers dream, right? Anyways, the point of MY story is that, for whatever reason, this movie inspired me to start cooking new things instead of the same old dinner repertoire. This recipe was one that I envisioned in my head (I do this a lot actually, but a lot of them don't turn out so great!) and this one came out pretty darn yummy if I do say so myself. It tasted a lot like Thanksgiving to me.

What You Need:

• 1 small-medium sized acorn squash
• 2 cups cooked cannellini beans (or sub other white beans)
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 1 tsp fresh rosemary, diced
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 3 leaves kale, stems removed and chopped into small pieces)
• olive oil for cooking
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 piece whole grain bread, toasted and made into bread crumbs (I put my toasted bread into a plastic bag and roll with a rolling pin).... or you can buy some bread crumbs as well!
• Parmesan cheese to finish (I used about 3 Tbl)

What You Do:

• Cut squash in half, remove seeds and brish top with olive oil. Cook squash at 400 degrees for about an hour (or until tender)
• While squash is cooking, put about 1 Tbl of olive oil in a skillet and heat on medium heat. Saute onion in skillet for about 5 minutes. Add celery and kale. Cook until tender. Add rosemary, salt and pepper and white beans and cook on low for another 5 minutes.
• When squash are cooked, scape out inside, making sure to keep skin intact.
• Add squash to skillet and mix with other veggies.
• Add squash mixture back into squash shells, cover with cheese and breadcrumbs, and bake for another 5-ish minutes (until the cheese melts)

This serves about 2 people (or a pregnant lady, a husband and a not-so-hungry toddler). I served it with my favorite salad, pear and arugula.