Stuffed Winter Squash with Italian Sausage, Mushrooms, and Farro

Going to Costco is supposed to be an exercise in happy excess, eating a meal via mega samples and buying too much stuff in quantities too large to store. Shopping at Costco is one of my parents' favorite errands, but last Saturday it turned into a nightmare for my mom. She was in a darkened aisle, didn't see an exposed bolt in the floor, and took a bad tumble after tripping on it. Fortunately, she didn't break any bones, but she is bruised and is suffering the equivalent of whiplash.

I learned about this Saturday afternoon so Sunday morning I went over to make them lunch and dinner. Earlier in the week I had brought her a small kabocha squash after she told me she hadn't had one before. While she was curious, she still hadn't used it. I love winter squashes and have written about them a lot over the years. There are so many unique varieties that are so beautiful and versatile.

Kabocha squash

The dense flesh transforms into perfect creamy soups for chilly days--and you can even make the soup in the squash itself.

Roast them and you get some magnificent sweet flavors that stand on their own, can be part of a stew, or can be turned into filling for ravioli.

The baseball-sized ones are a perfect chalice for stuffing. They're a one-dish meal. And, hey, I love chomping on roasted seeds.

Making stuffed winter squash for them seemed ideal so I stopped by the market to pick up a second kabocha. Since the remaining ones were too large, I got a nice looking acorn squash instead, along with sweet Italian chicken sausage, and an apple. I brought along a package of farro and figured I'd scavenge any other ingredients from her always well-stocked refrigerator. Indeed, I found a box of crimini mushrooms, onions, garlic, and a package of Trader Joe's Quattro Formaggio Shredded Cheese Blend, which is made up of asiago, fontina, parmesan, and mild provolone. Perfect.

Making stuffed squash is pretty easy and, of course, you can riff on any ingredients that sound great to you. I chose farro as my grain but rice, quinoa, barley... any of them will be wonderful. You don't have to include meat, but I thought my folks would enjoy some flavorful sausage and since my mom no longer eats red meat, the sweet Italian chicken sausage was an ideal choice that my dad would also like. To me, sausages, mushrooms, onion, and garlic are a perfect combo. You could also include sautéed spinach, pine nuts, raisins...the list is endless. You can add herbs or spices, but I think the Italian sausage has enough in them already and didn't want to mask those flavors.

The first thing you do is par-bake the squash after cleaning it. Cut the squash in half lengthwise, pull out the seeds and then scrape the hole with a spoon to remove all the remaining fibrous material. Then put the squash halves cut side down on a baking sheet and add water to surround the halves up to about a quarter inch. Cover them with foil and bake in a 375-degree oven for about 45 minutes or until they are easily pierced by a fork.

While the squash is cooking you'll make the filling. Put up your grains to cook. Chop your vegetables and fruit--I like adding apple or persimmon or citrus or pomegranate seeds to a savory filling. Then start sautéing.

I'll give you a marvelous tip on sautéing mushroom slices that I learned from Alice Waters on a show she did with Julia Child. Leave them alone. That's it. Add them to a hot pan with olive oil, spread them single layer, and just let them be until they brown. Then flip them over and leave them alone again. By not constantly stirring them you end up with beautifully caramelized mushrooms that taste phenomenal.

So, sauté the mushrooms and put them in a bowl. Sauté the onions and garlic, then add the diced apple and let them just brown. Add the sausage after removing the casing and poke it into small chunks as the meat cooks. When the sausage is browned, you'll add back the mushrooms so the flavors can meld. Put the mixture back in the bowl, add your cooked grains and the cheese and mix well. The cheese will melt a bit to bind the ingredients. By then the squash should be cooked and out of the oven. Now some people scoop out the flesh, chop it up, and add it to the filling. Go ahead. I chose to keep it intact. Either way, rub a little olive oil on the inner surface of the squash and then fill the squash "bowl" with your very fragrant filling. Top with some more cheese and put them back in the oven (yes, keep the water in the pan) uncovered. You'll cook the squash for another 15 minutes. Then serve or cover and refrigerate, then reheat before serving.

I had just a bit of stuffing left over which my parents demolished while the squash were cooking. So I think it was a success.

And, yes, Mom's feeling better. Thanks for asking!

Stuffed Winter Squash with Italian Sausage, Mushrooms, and Farro
(printable recipe)
Serves 4

Ingredients

2 round(ish) winter squash, about the size of a baseball
3 to 4 cups of cooked grains
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large sweet Italian or spicy Italian sausage (about 8 ounces), casing removed
1 firm apple (I like Granny Smiths for this), peeled and diced
Olive oil for sautéing and to rub the cooked squash
1 cup shredded cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Slice the squashed in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. You can reserve them to clean and toast as a snack. Using a spoon, scrape the remaining fiber off the surface of the squash flesh. Place all four halved cut side down on a baking sheet. Add enough water to rise about a quarter inch along the sides. Cover with foil and bake for about 45 minutes, until a fork easily pierces the skin. Remove the squash from the oven and turn them cut side up. Reserve.

While the squash is baking, make the grains and the stuffing. To make the stuffing, add oil to a pan and turn on the heat to medium. Add just enough mushrooms to cover the bottom of the pan in one layer--you may have to sauté them in a couple of batches. Let the mushrooms cook on one side without disturbing them. As they shrink, they'll brown. Then flip them over and let them cook on the other side until done. Add them to a large mixing bowl. Add more oil to the pan and sauté the onions and garlic until they turn golden. Add the diced apple and let them also cook to a golden color. Then add the sausage.

Crumble it as it cooks and let it cook until the pink of the raw meat turns to brown. Add back the mushrooms and stir together briefly. Put the mixture into the mixing bowl and season with salt and pepper.

Add the grains and two-thirds of a cup of the grated cheese to the stuffing mixture and stir together to thoroughly combine the ingredients. By now the squash should be out of the oven and ready to be stuffed. Rub a little oil on the cooked flesh. Then scoop the mixture into the hollow of each squash half. It's okay if it overflows a little. Top each half with the remaining cheese.

Return the squash to the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve immediately--or you can let it cool and refrigerate covered. Before you're ready to serve it let it come to room temperature and then put back in a warm oven to reheat.

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Big Momma Market: The Hillcrest Farmers Market

Last week, KPBS radio's These Days had a discussion about buying local food and people were calling in, usually prefacing their remarks with "I go every Sunday morning to the Hillcrest farmers market." Even a woman from Scripps Ranch, which has its own Saturday market... Go figure. But the Hillcrest farmers market is a special place. I used to go almost every Sunday myself when I lived in Hillcrest, but since I'm in Tierrasanta now I tend to go there on Thursday afternoons. So, it had been awhile since I'd been by and thought it would be fun to see what's new.

I'd forgotten just how huge it is. Like the La Jolla and Ocean Beach markets, it's packed with all sorts of vendors and feels like a big festival. Many of the folks I'm used to seeing around town are there--among them, Baba Foods, Majestic Garlic, Smit Orchards, Gourmet European Pastries and Lisko Imports, Jackie's Jams and Creekside Tropicals.

Because of that, I'm not going to go through everything I saw. Stone fruit are front and center still this week, as are tomatoes, squash and avocadoes. What I will do is show you some things that caught my eye.

Like the produce at Valdivia Farms. I love their tomatoes, particularly their heirloom tomatoes. Today, they were overflowing.



But, they also had a box of sweet little baby corn.



I bought half a dozen and then spent awhile back at home trying to decide what to do with them. Regardless of how large the packaging is -- and some of these, as you can see, were seven or eight inches with lots of silk -- once you peel away the husk and silk, it still is a petite three inches or so.



Do I stir fry them with other veggies? Marinate them in herbed garlic oil and then grill them to serve as appetizers? Chop them and add to pasta? Eat them raw, dipped in chili sauce?

Raw won for one of them. This is not the same baby corn you get in the can. Straight from the husk, it was sweet and just a little crispy. The chili garlic sauce was a nice complement. As for the other five, I'm going to add them to pasta with the chopped heirloom tomatoes I bought from Valdivia, sweet basil and lemon thyme from my garden, a teaspoon of Majestic Garlic spread, olive oil and thin slices of Parmigiano Reggiano. Perfect for a sultry Sunday night meal.

The tomatoes. Aren't they amazing? Some of the heirloom tomatoes were so dark, they looked like fat purple plums. But they weren't the only ones to catch my eye. There were hefty globes in red, green and yellow. The green are perfect, of course, for frying. The yellow ones are fun to incorporate in a salad or sliced to make a sandwich with mozzarella, basil leaves and a homemade vinaigrette. They're sweet, juicy, meaty (yes, I ate one this afternoon with just a little bit of sea salt sprinkled on it). It is high season for these magnificent fruits. Buy them and enjoy them while they're looking so good.


Mountain Meadow Mushrooms of Escondido had a booth offering a smorgasbord of fungi. There were hamburger patty-size Portabellos and dark shitakes, big stemmed trumpets and little wild Maritakes, criminis and your basic white mushroom. I liked the baskets that offered a variety.


I walked past stalls filled with fresh herbs, including one that had such a beautiful display that one customer was creating a bouquet. I would have bought some myself, except that I grow them at home.


I was astounded, though, by the large display of one of my very favorite fruits, passion fruit, which I discovered on a trip to Australia years and years ago. These egg-shaped fruits are the ugliest little things when fully ripe, but what's inside is a bright yellow-orange magical liqueur that is sweet and tart. I am happiest simply scooping up the liquid in a spoon and eating it, but drizzle it over French vanilla ice cream, add to a smoothie or incorporate it into a sauce.


Unfortunately, I couldn't buy any because I had run out of cash. And, here's my suggestion to the managers of any of these markets--invest in an EBT machine so people can use a debit card to get cash or tokens that vendors can cash in at the end of the market. As a customer, I find it's just too hard to anticipate how much I'll want to buy or what it'll cost. And, it may encourage customers like me to buy more.

The Hillcrest farmers market is held every Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 3960 Normal Street at Lincoln, adjacent to the DMV.

Have some thoughts about the Hillcrest farmers market or other markets in San Diego? Do you have a favorite neighborhood market or shop that carries unique or unusual foodstuff? Let me know or add to the conversation by clicking on comments below:



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