Bulgur Stuffed Acorn Squash

My daughter is in that weird age where they understand almost everything you tell or ask them and they give 99% accurate responses but that 1% they answer something that just totally doesn’t fit the question you wonder, did she not understand or is she just making fun of me? This morning I asked her if her dad had brought them to school with the bicycle trailer or by foot (in order to know if I had to go get the trailer and push them home instead of walking) and she answered: “children” ?!?! Then I asked what she wanted for dinner and she said “flowers”. Umm?! What?! Again, I don’t know if she misunderstood the question or if she was just making fun of me. I am absolutely sure though that she didn’t expect me to fulfill her wish by making her acorn flowers for dinner ;)

I’ve had two acorn squashes on my kitchen counter for an eternity and just couldn’t make up my mind on what to do with them until I got the flower dinner wish. When cut in rings acorn squash looks like a flowers! *win* And smothered in olive oil and maple syrup and then roasted they sure smell like flowers, too.

The absolute best part about cutting this squash in rings though is that it thus only takes about 40 minutes to roast as opposed to over an hour when only cut in half. You save about half an hour roasting time. The down side….you have to say lots of prayers while cutting it in order to keep all 10 fingers. Ugh! If you have one of those bread slicing machines you are very very lucky. Use it for this. Apart from taking less risks, your rings will be cut a lot more evenly. If not, just be super careful. If I was able to do it, you will be, too!

The lime maple tahini dressing was the most delicious of this recipe. It made the dish taste almost like dessert. An explosion of salty and sweetness, softness and graininess. I loved it and my flower girl loved it, too. She always makes that m-h-m-h-m sound while chewing when she likes something. So adorable.

The pomegranate seeds are optional. I know they are hard to get at some places. I sprinkled them on top mostly for some color. However, they did give the dish that tiny little extra special taste and texture. I love how they pop out all their sweet and sour juice when you bite on them.

Bulgur Stuffed Acorn Squash

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour

Servings: 4

Print Recipe

Ingredients

• ▢ 2 acorn squashes
• ▢ olive oil
• ▢ maple syrup
• ▢ 3/4 cup bulgur
• ▢ 1 onion
• ▢ 2 yellow apples
• ▢ 1 bunch kale
• ▢ 2 cups cooked chickpeas
• ▢ 3 Tbsp tahini
• ▢ 1 Tbsp maple syrup
• ▢ 1/2 lime
• ▢ 1 pomegranate

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Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 F (180°C).
• Wash acorn squash and cut into rings very carefully not to cut into your fingers. Remove seeds.
• In a small bowl whisk together equal parts olive oil and maple syrup. Depending on the size of the acorn squashes you will need 2 or 3 Tablespoons of each. Whisk until creamy consistency, then brush onto both sides of the acorn rings'.
• Place olive oil maple syrup smothered acorn rings on a baking sheet and place in hot oven for 20 minutes, then turn around and continue roasting for another 20 minutes.
• While squash is roasting, prepare bulgur.
• Put bulgur and 1 tsp salt in a pot with lid. Add boiling water while stirring until covered completely and about half an inch above the top. Put on lid and let sit for 15 minutes.
• Peel and chop onion.
• Wash and destalk and finely chop kale.
• Wash and core and chop apples.
• Heat a large pan over medium heat. Once hot add a dollop of olive oil and once hot add onions.
• Fry until translucent. Then add apples and kale.
• Once apples and kale are soft add chickpeas and bulgur.
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• In a small bowl mix tahini, 1 tbsp maple syrup, juice of half a lime and then add water 1 tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached.
• Once acorn squash is finished roasting. It should be soft and golden. Take out of the oven and place flowers on plates. Fill up the holes with kale chickpea apple bulgur and top with lime maple tahini dressing and a couple pomegranates.

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On a tooootally different note….I’ve announced it on Facebook and Twitter but some of you might not be following me there (you should though, aham, that’s were you get the newest news from Green Healthy Cooking pretty much live just as they are happening ;), I reached 30,000 page views in the past 30 days and my heart skipped a beat when I saw that number on my screen. Really, THIRTY THOUSAND blog pages have been looked at in the past month, THIRTY with THREE zeros after that!!! I am so incredibly grateful to all of you for scanning and reading and commenting and rating and “liking” and sharing and pinning and tweeting my posts it means THE WORLD, no wait, THE UNIVERSE to me!!! I put so much effort into this! I spend hours upon hours thinking about new recipes, developing them, cooking them, photographing them, posting them, writing a nice little piece of blog post to each and every one of them and hit publish all nervously hoping you will like what I post, hoping you will read and like and cook and fall in love and share and tweet and comment and….YOU DO!!! You really do and this is the best feeling a blogger or person in general probably can have. You appreciate my effort, you appreciate my work and for that I am grateful beyond words. I still stare at those numbers in disbelief.

P.S. Wanna know something wonderful? Today, 30 years ago, one of the most important people in my life was born. My sister!! Happy Birthday Pitsche Patsche! I love you!