November 9, 2012 / Leslie

Baked Acorn Squash Rings

Last week I harvested all of my Acorn Squash. I would have waited for a frost to kill off the plants, but a feisty squirrel decided to start her own harvest so I had to act quickly if I wanted to eat any of them myself.

This is the first year I planted Acorn Squash in the garden and the harvest was better than I expected. In the past I’ve grown only zucchini plants, but I always end up with too many zucchini all at once. By the end of the summer no one wants a free zucchini, so this year I planted half zucchini, half acorn squash. Acorn Squash have a hard shell and a long shelf life. I now have a box of them that will store for a month or so in a cool area. I may need to find a few more ways to prepare them.

Recipe

My usual method of cooking the squash is to cut one in half and bake, but that takes over an hour before it’s ready to eat. I read that cutting them into rings will make them cook much faster, so I gave that a try using my basic recipe of butter and brown sugar. Yup, it worked just fine. Very tasty and they looked nice too.

Ingredients:

• Acorn squash
• Unsalted butter
• Brown sugar
• Salt

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Using a serrated knife, cut squash crosswise into one half inch slices. Once the center exposed, scoop out the seeds (which can roasted the same as pumpkin seeds or discarded).

Place the squash rings on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. If not using parchment paper the baking sheet should be lightly oiled. (If you’ve never tried parchment paper, it’s the best thing since paper plates. I will never go back to greasing a pan again.)

Add small dots of butter to each squash ring and sprinkle with a little brown sugar.

Bake for 20 minutes. Turn the rings half way through and add more butter and sugar and season with salt.

And that feisty squirrel?

Since the garden is done for the winter, the apples have fallen off the tree, and the walnut tree had a lean year, she’s been busy trying to break into the bird feeders.