Food Blogs - Sausage & Rice Stuffed Squash

I haven't been blogging much lately, but I've been reading a lot of blogs.  Food blogs to be precise.  The last couple of months, I've really been addicted to food blogs.  As a result, all of the Christmas cookies I made this season have been new recipes.

A few days ago I ran across a food blog recipe for sausage and rice stuffed squash.  It had all sorts of good stuff in it, in fact I think the title was "All good stuff" or "Everything Good" or something like that. Unfortunately I couldn't find it again, so I had to come up with my own recipe to stuff an Acorn squash.

I started out with the squash.  Cut it in half, cleaned out the seeds and put the 2 halves upside down in a baking dish with a bit of water.  350 for 40 min and it's pretty much steam-baked tender.

While the squash was baking I started some brown rice.  One cup of short grained brown rice in 2 cups of chicken broth.  Cover it, bring it to a boil, then turn down to simmer and let it cook for 50 min.

Then I sauteed 1/2 a sweet onion in a little olive oil.  Once the onion was tender I added 1/2 a tube of Jimmy Dean Sage sausage.  I added a bit more sage seasoning, and some fresh ground pepper.  Once the sausage browned (on low heat) I added a heaping tablespoon of minced garlic and almost 2 cups of cut up mushrooms.  A few min of stirring and then the rest of an old bottle of Pinot Noir.  Maybe 1/2 a cup, but I'm sure any wine would due.  Put a cover on the pan and let the mushrooms cook down for 5 or 10 min.  I thought it needed a bit of salt, so I added a tablespoon of chicken bouillon.

All in all, it was a pretty good meal.  Salty, spicy and very filling.  I'd try it again but next time I'd add some chopped up water chestnuts for the crunch.  And I'd like it to be a bit more creamy in texture.  I'll have to think about other changes to make.  Maybe adding some spinach would be nice.

About this time the squash was done so I took it out of the oven and salt and peppered the inside.  Then I added the cooked brown rice to the sausage mixture and stirred.  I mixed some mozzarella cheese in with a couple of scoops of the rice mixture, just to hold it together.  Scooped the rice/sausage mixture into the hollow of the squash and sprinkled some Parmesan and Romano cheese over the whole thing. And 10 more in in the oven to melt all the cheese and it was dinner time.