Vegan MoFo Day 21 - Baked Acorn Squash

Acorn squash always reminds me of the fall.  I love the rich flavor of it.  I know there are so many different ways to make it but I like it just baked plain.  No matter how you prepare it though I think the toughest thing about preparing it is to just cut it open.  Make sure you have a really sharp, strong knife!

Baked Acorn Squash

1 acorn squash (will serve two - four people)

water 

salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  While the oven is heating up, cut the squash in half.  Scrape out the seeds with a spoon.  I find it easiest to get the seeds out by getting some of the flesh with your spoon.  Do a few more scrapes to get the remaining threads.  This is what you'll have.

I then rinse the squash on the inside with water and sprinkle a little bit of seat salt on it.  Put squash halves on a baking sheet (I usually cover mine with aluminum foil for easy clean up) faced down.  

Bake for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes turn the squash over and cook an additional 30 minutes until soft.

My mom and I had a quarter of the squash each last night for dinner.  I really just like it plain.  I put a little Earth Balance margarine on my portion with salt and pepper to taste.  I kinds of mash it all together in the little boat it forms.

I also made creamed spinach and scalloped potatoes for my dinner.  I used coconut milk in both recipes for the milk alternative.  It was okay but I think I like almond milk better in these two recipes because the coconut milk is a little sweet.  I made a little too much sauce for the spinach because I doubled the creamed spinach sauce and used the big value size of fresh spinach.  I probably only needed about 1 to 1 ½ of the recipe of the sauce for all that spinach.  I will start with the original recipe and then add "milk" as needed for the consistency/creaminess.  I am okay with it because I’m thinking I can either have the leftovers over a baked potato.