Stuffed Baby Squash

Amy, this recipe made me think of all those squash on your windowsill, just waiting to be devoured. :-)

I was so excited to make this! We've been getting different varieties of squash every week in the CSA, and sometimes it's challenging to find new and exciting ways to cook them. This is from the "Best Ever Three and Four Ingredient Cookbook" that we bought on a whim from Borders a few years ago because it had a big read $3.99 sticker on it. It turned out to be quite a find, because everything we've made out of it has been awesome!

We planned on making extra rice for meals later in the week, but after preparing the rice, we realized we forgot that we were going to cut the recipe in half, since we only had two squash, so that just means we have ALOT of extra rice now.

The recipe calls for chili and garlic oil. Normally, we would never have this kind of thing on hand, but we did happen to have small bottles of both garlic oil and chili oil (stocking stuffers), so we mixed the two. But if we didn't have these, I bet you could add some minced garlic and red pepper flakes to the oil in the pan and cook for a minute or so and then strain them out and you would get a similar flavor.

Stuffed Baby Squash

adapted from Best Ever Three and Four Ingredient Cookbook

serves 4

4 small squash, each about 12 oz

1 cup uncooked mixed wild and basmati rice

1 1/4 cups grated Gruyere cheese

4 tablespoons chili and garlic oil

Salt and ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 375.

Poke a hole in each squash with the tip of a knife. Bake until tender, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the rice in salted, boiling water until tender, about 12 minutes, and drain (Joe just cooked the rice until all the water was absorbed, so we didn't have to drain it).

Let the squash sit until cool enough to handle, or if you are impatient like me, wear an oven mitt on one hand and proceed with slicing a lid of the top off each squash and scooping out and discarding the seeds and stringy stuff. Next, scoop out the flesh and roughly chop it.

Heat your oil in a nonstick pan and cook the chopped squash for about 5 minutes. Reserve 4 tablespoons of the cheese, and add the rest, along with the rice, to the pan and mix it all together. Add a little salt too.

Divide the mixture evenly among the squash shells. Sprinkle with the reserved cheese and bake for about 20 minutes.