Hubbard Squash? Yes, Please!

AllSpicer Piper‘s family loves to get creative in the kitchen, resulting in some interesting (and delicious) meals! Recently, her family decided to tackle the Hubbard squash by preparing a stuffed version of it. Piper shared, “The Hubbard squash has a thick, grey-blue exterior shell and can grow up to 20 pounds! Cooking the gourd reveals its sweet, nutty flavor.”

First, they needed to figure out how to split the squash in half. According to Piper, attempts to cut it open with a knife were clumsy at best. Instead, she recommends “smashing the squash on the ground repeatedly until it breaks open.” Once they got the squash open, they began preparing it. Creative folks often don’t follow (or create) detailed recipes, but we talked Piper into giving it a shot, and she did an okay job (we’ll give it a solid B-). Here are the steps she followed:

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F.
2. Prepare a rub from Smoked Sweet Paprika, Tandoori Spice Blend, Fajita Seasoning (which Piper’s family uses in place of regular salt and pepper as their go-to table condiment). Add just a sprinkle of Pumpkin Pie Spice Blend.
3. Slather the squash with a single-varietal olive oil like Arbequina, and coat the cut side with the rub you created and a bit of brown sugar, which helps to bring out the natural sweetness of the gourd.
4. In the preheated oven, roast the squash cut side down for one hour.
5. While the squash is in the oven, sauté Brussels sprouts, purple carrots, and golden beets in Tandoori Spice Blend, Turmeric, and Maple Sugar Powder.  Add a splash of maple syrup (we recommend Runamok maple syrups) and butter to deglaze the pan).
6. Once the veggies are tender, whip up a box of cornbread stuffing mix. Piper asks you to hold your judgement. “Nothing beats the box when you’re short on time!”
7. Take the squash out of the oven and stuff with the sautéed vegetables then top with the cornbread stuffing.
8. Enjoy!

The entire process took just over an hour to complete. Listening to her family describing how delicious it was has the rest of the AllSpice team ready to make their own versions of this tasty dish.

Photo credit: Lind N. via Flickr licensed under Creative Commons license CC BY 2.0).