My family and I found ourselves at the farmer's market this weekend. We love going here together for various reasons. My kids love to go look at the animals, my oldest insists she is going to buy a rabbit one day and I am starting to worry that this might be possible with all the money she has saved up. My husband likes to talk to everyone, he doesn't know a stranger. Me, I love the amazing deals on farm fresh produce.
Well unfortunately, thanks to the wonderful Florida weather, we got rained out this weekend and got trapped under one of the market buildings waiting for the storm to die down. We didn't get to do much while we were there but we did manage to get rainy day deals on some amazing veggies. I managed to snag a cantaloupe, a ton of cucumbers (guess who's making pickles?!), celery, yellow squash, sweet potatoes, bananas, and.... an acorn squash.
I have never, ever cooked an acorn squash, weird right? I kinda just thought they were fall decor and had no clue what to do with this strange, but beautiful looking vegetable. But by God I would try. So this...this is my story.
I stared at this strange gourd for what felt like hours, unable to form a plan of attack. Where do I start? How do I cut it? Did it just move on its own? No, I kid. I started simply by cutting the squash in half.
Using a spoon I removed the seedy innards of the squash before cutting the halves in half. I then sliced each of the sections into smaller scalloped pieces, almost chip like. The ridges of the squash gave each piece an aesthetically pleasing shape.
I put the pieces in a roasting pan and then mixed together the olive oil, the syrup, and the brown sugar, reserving half of the syrup for later. To ensure the best taste I recommend using 100% maple syrup, the good stuff, not the caramel colored corn syrup for the kids morning Eggo stuff. After combining the ingredients I lightly drizzled the squash, trying to cover as much as I could as evenly as I could. The I sprinkled the rosemary, salt, and pepper over top.
I covered the pan and put the squash in the oven which was preheated to 375. I let the squash cook for 30 minutes then removed the pan to include the reserved portion of my syrup. At this point the squash smelled divine, the sweetness of the maple and the fragrant softness of rosemary had my family begging for dinner. I put it back in for another 15 minutes.
The squash came out soft and buttery, very melt in your mouth. Because of the rosemary I didn't feel like I was eating a desert, it seemed to keep the sweetness of the maple syrup at bay. All in all I was very pleased with my first attempt at acorn squash. I will attach a recipe card below so hopefully you too can enjoy this!
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