Some days I need a little inspiration. I knew that I would be baking squash for our Shabbat dinner tonight. And I knew it would have some delicious dried cranberries in it. I just wasn’t entirely sure what form it would all take.

I looked around on the internet for a bit and saw this scrumptious looking recipe for a Southern style baked acorn squash and was on my way!

Acorn Squash with Cranberry Apple Stuffing
2 acorn squash
boiling water
2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped into ¼ inch pieces
½ cup dried cranberries
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil or coconut oil

1. Cut squash in half and with a spoon, remove pulp and seeds
2. In a 9 x 13 inch baking dish place squash cut-side down
3. Pour ¼-inch boiling water into baking dish (or use ¼ inch room temperature apple juice for extra sweetness)
4. Place dish in oven and bake squash for 30 minutes at 350°
5. In a large bowl, combine apples, cranberries, cinnamon and oil to make stuffing
6. Remove squash from the oven after 30 minutes
7. Turn halves over and stuff center of each squash half with apple mixture
8. Return to oven and bake for 30-35 minutes (or longer) until squash and apples are tender

Serves 4

On a separate note, I just want to thank everyone for their extensive and heart felt comments to my last post. It is nice to see how many people out there cherish food and hold it in such high regard.

In her review of my simple bread recipe, Alchemille points out something that I agree with and that unfortunately may only become increasingly true during these tough economic times: food is a luxury.

With nearly 1 billion people going hungry on our planet every day, only some of us are lucky enough to have food to eat. Still a smaller portion of that population gets actual real, nourishing food –as opposed to fake food chemicals and the “foodstuff” created by corporate America.

Those who are discerning and make the choice to eat high quality food are the truly fortunate. Still, there are challenges to be faced in making these choices, whether on an economic or social level. Hopefully as agriculture becomes more localized, food quality will improve and high quality food will become more accessible to all.

Again, many thanks to everyone for their astute comments and especially to Alchemille for engendering a timely and most important conversation.