The sun has come out in LA after a solid week of glorious rain, much to my chagrin. Fortunately, it’s still cold enough to crave winter food, so I’m going to share a simple recipe for a quinoa-stuffed squash. It’s takes about 30 minutes to prepare and is easy to modify to make vegetarian. You will need:
- 1 butternut squash
- 1 cup quinoa
- a protein of your choice
- dried cranberries
- walnuts or cashews
- butter
- cinnamon
- cumin
- coriander
- honey
You’ll notice no exact measurements – that’s because with this recipe, I eyeball everything. It’s not scary as long as you keep testing!
- heat oven to 400F
- halve and seed squash, using a sharp knife, scoop out some of the insides then coat the halves in butter, cinnamon, cumin and honey
- bake cut sides up on a foil-covered cooking sheet for 20-30 minutes, or until soft
- rinse quinoa well, and cook [Note: I buy pre-rinsed Trader Joe’s quinoa so there’s no rinsing necessary! Also, since I made this, I started making my quinoa in the rice cooker and suggest you do the same]
- while the quinoa cooks, take a protein of your choice, chop it up and cook in butter [you can use olive oil, but I prefer butter for this recipe]. Spice with a little salt, honey, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, coriander and cumin.
- add cooked quinoa to the mix once it’s done, along with dried cranberries and nuts – walnuts or cashews work well. Blend well in the pan.
- spoon into cooked squash, then slice.
Enjoy!
ooo!! i think i may try this with regular yellow squash and raisins. :D thanks, zoe!
oh, YUM. looks like perfect winter food. would love to try cooking the quinoa in apple cider or something similar for this recipe!
I sent something to your formspring about cooking so this is awesome! :)
This looks amazing! I’m definitely trying this.
Gah, that looks delicious. I have several boxes of Trader Joe’s quinoa (I kept buying it because I’d forget I already had some), so this will be a good use of them. I’ll try it with Gimme Lean veg sausage, and without nuts and maple syrup instead of honey so the kidling can eat it.
…as soon as my damn oven is fixed.
I wonder if onions will be good in it? I’m big on aromatics, and I looooove onions cooked in butter. That’s what’s great about your not including quantities — it makes people feel freer to improvise and change, and that’s what makes cooking fun.
Sounds delicious, I’ll give it a try once the holidays are over. :) happy festivities by the way!
Are your plates very small, or they just look like that in the picture? (I cant compare to the squash’s size, ’cause we don’t have those here).
Anyways, it looks amazing,.. I think I’ll try it once the weather cools down a bit c:
Thank you for the recipe! I’m always looking for yummy new dishes to experiment with that don’t take FOREVER to cook, or marinate overnight etc… I tried quinoa a few years ago but couldn’t get the flavor right; maybe I’ll give it another try with this recipe. This looks like an excellent combination of flavors.
Where do you find most of your recipes, Zo?
*Just* made this for dinner and it was wonderful despite my fail with both squash and quinoa (first time with both) and I look forward to the leftovers tomorrow! I made mine with the filling over diced squash because I can’t chew (recently extracted wisdom teeth) with applesauce on the side and it is certainly one of the best things I’ve made in years…
Thanks! Keep up the awesome (it’s really inspiring)!