Best Bites

By Joan Leotta

My personal fall favorite for savory dishes is the acorn squash.

Acorn squash may be the healthiest of all the squash varieties. It offers more folate, calcium, magnesium (nearly one-third of a day's worth in one cup) and potassium than butternut, Hubbard, or spaghetti squash. Eat one cup of cooked acorn squash and you'll get more potassium (896 milligrams) than if you ate two medium bananas (844 mg).

You can find this power-packed veggie in most groceries beginning in the fall and usually through the winter holidays. It is a large green, acorn shape, with bits of orange at either end. Picking one is pretty easy since it will be green and yellowish in sort of equal parts, heavy for its size with no soft spots.

It’s a hard squash to cut through. I make a couple of slits , microwave for up to thirty seconds and find that softens the outer skin enough to cut the squash in half and take out the seeds.

A medium-sized acorn squash can be simply cut in half, seeds scooped out, a pat of butter and teaspoon of brown sugar and a pinch of salt put into the cavity, and baked at 350˚ until soft. Time of cooking varies depending on the squash. It’s a lovely side dish.

My favorite way to consume all of this goodness is with sausage and apple stuffing. I purchase Neese’s sausage (a North Carolina natural product), cut the one-pound block in half, freeze half for another time, and put the sausage in a pan with one sliced apple, half a small onion, salt, pepper, and some breadcrumbs. When the sausage is cooked and the apples are soft, I crack in an egg to bind the stuffing.

I cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and soften the squash by putting it open-side down on a microwave safe plate with a few tablespoons of water. Then I cook it in the microwave for up to for five minutes, and then a minute at a time until it’s soft.

When the squash is soft enough, I fill each half with the sausage stuffing, sprinkle some grated Romano cheese on top, and bake the squash, covered, for about twenty minutes. The recipe is at right.

We usually fix a green salad as the side dish and when feeling very festive, accompany the meal with Italian bread.

1 medium acorn squash, cut in half, seeds scooped out ½ block of Neese’s country sausage or 8 oz. of any other kind of loose sausage 1 medium to small gala or fuji apple, sliced (I don’t peel mine) 1 small onion, chopped 1 egg ¼ cup breadcrumbs Salt and pepper to taste ¼ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese Sauté the sausage, apple, and onion together until the sausage is cooked. Add the breadcrumbs, salt, pepper. Remove from the re. Add the egg and stir. Divide the stu ng into two parts to stu each half of the acorn squash. Place the lled halves in casserole dish. Sprinkle with grated Pecorino Romano cheese Cover and bake at 350˚ for 20 minutes. Serves 2.