Baked Acorn/Butternut Squash with Pear and Apple

Oh yeah. It happened. The day has arrived.

I bought myself a book stand for the Recipe Book. I may not be very high on the income chart right now, but every so often you must do a little splurge. And this weekend, I righted a long and annoying experience in the Apple Store (Yes, you CAN wait for 30 minutes for your Genius Bar appointment in a store mobbed with new iPhone buyers only to find out they cannot help you) by rewarding myself with a little traipse around Crate & Barrel, where they just so happened to have the long-sought-after Recipe Book Stand.

It is glorious. It is magnificent. And I love it.

Behold the wonder

Unfortunately, I had to christen this most magnificent of devices with a recipe for squash. Baked Acorn/Butternut Squash with Pear and Apple to be precise. And which I had about zero interest in eating. But that's what we're all about, aren't we? Mercilessly wasting food for your reading pleasure?

This recipe is from The Joy of Cooking via our friend Jen Hatch, but that didn't make me any more predisposed to like it, just guiltier that I wouldn't. Since it calls for a lot of produce, Josh stopped by the farmer's market, only to discover that acorn and butternut squash are winter squashes, thus not around right now, what with it being June and all. Josh asked if there would be a suitable squash substitute there, but the vehement farmer's marketeer would not be subdued. 'No! Acorn and butternut squash are bitter!' 'Okay. Thank you,' said Josh. 'The squashes out now are not bitter!' she continued. 'Okay. Thank you,' said Josh. 'No one here will have acorn or butternut squash!' she yelled. At this point, Josh scampered off. At least, that's how it went down in my imagination.

Luckily, being modern people, we do not have to be held hostage to the silly vicissitudes of Mother Nature, and were able to sate our squash need thanks to the industrialists who exploit modern knowledge to make things grow off season and/or pollute the planet flying them around from distant locales. That is to say, we went to the grocery store. Where we were able to find both acorn and butternut squash. We went for the acorn; it was cooler looking.

Sean joined us for dinner and he and Josh pronounced the squash good--on balance. The stuffing (apples and pears and raisins - oh my) is delicious and apple pie-like. The squash shell is boring. Sean thinks this is because most squash recipes go the way of twice baked potatoes, calling for you to scoop out the squash and mix them with more enticing things before putting them back in. In theory I think this sounds like it might be a better approach, but in practice I don't like squash so I don't really care. And as I phoned in my bite, I think their opinions stand.

Meanwhile, I now have one full stuffed squash leftover in the fridge and I highly doubt I've got any takers. I will say it was very pretty, though.

Helloooooo!

Baked Acorn Squash with Pear & Apple

2 medium acorn or butternut squash, halved and seeded
2 large apples, peeled and diced (cored, too)

1 ripe pear, peeled and diced*
1/4 cup dried currants or raisins**
2 tbsp packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, zest of small orange
1/8 tsp ground or fresh nutmeg
2 tbsp butter
1/4 cup apple cider or orange juice (option B)
1 tbsp bourbon or dark rum (again, option B)

Preheat oven to 325F. Butter baking pan. Check.

Try to figure out which way you are supposed to halve the squash. Decide to go for the popular 'equator' method. Try to figure out how to de-seed and -string the squash. Wonder where you put that pumpkin carving kit with the cute scraper. Decide to use your grapefruit spoon instead, which sort of scrapes it well and sort of doesn't scrape it at all. Upgrade to just hunking around the middle with a knife for the second squash. Put squash seed innards into compost pale and feel superior.

Place cut side of squash down in pan. Neglect to read through the rest of the recipe and worry about leaving the stem bits in the bottom of the squash. Decide to cut out the stem bottoms. Oh well.

Add 1/4 inch hot water to pan, bake 45 minutes.

Meanwhile mix in medium bowl: apples, pear, currants or raisins, dark brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange zest. Feel nostalgic for the awesome old time-y apple peeler vice thing that is in the kitchen of your family's vacation house in Vermont and wish you had that now. Have no real idea how to properly peel and apple without removing a digit. Use the carrot peeler and mostly succeed in not hurting yourself. Feel delighted about possibly the first chance to use your proper zester. Oh, how delightful.

Heat butter in large skillet and add fruit mixture until fruit is golden brown (about 5 minutes). Stir in cider or orange juice and bourbon or rum. Listen to Josh and Sean exclaim the virtues of Flor de Cana rum. Get enough rum away from them to use for cooking.

Simmer and stir often until fruit is tender. Remove squash from pan, pour off water, turn squash cut side up and fill with fruit mixture. Realize if you'd bothered reading this far you would have understood that you didn't need to cut out the stem stumps. Bake until squash is tender (15 minutes). Feed to Sean and Josh. Force self to take one meager bite. Call it a victory and then eat the rest of the Hooter's wings for dinner.

*Jen Hatch note: I sometimes skip the pear.
HH note: I did not.

**Jen Hatch note: I use raisins.
HH note: I did, too.