Sausage and Wild Rice Stuffed Squash

I found a recipe online today and I immediately wanted to try it. So it became dinner tonight. And it was delicious! Some variation of this would be a delicious addition to the Thanksgiving dinner table. So this recipe is a vegetarian version of this recipe at AllRecipes.com - Wild Rice Stuffed Acorn Squash. But it needed some protein, so I tweaked it a bit into my own creation. Here's my version:

Sausage and Wild Rice Stuffed Squash

4 acorn squash
1 cup wild rice - uncooked (I used Lundberg Wild Blend)
1 pound sausage
1 onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 stalk celery
4 ounces sliced mushrooms
1 small box instant cornbread stuffing mix (6oz) (I used Stove Top)
Sage
Salt & Pepper


Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Cut acorn squash in half and clean out seeds. Place cut-side down in baking dish with 1 inch of water and cook for about 25 minutes - cooked until just before it's fully tender.

Prepare rice (if you use Lundberg it takes a while, so start this first). Prepare boxed instant stuffing mix, set aside. Brown the sausage then drain the excess fat. Return to pan and add mushrooms, onion, celery and garlic and cook until tender. Add seasoning to taste and let simmer until vegetables are tender. Mix together the rice, stuffing and sausage ingredients together.

Remove squash from oven. Remove water from baking dish and turn squash over so cut-side is up. Fill the cavities of the squash with the stuffing mixture, heaping it into the squash. Return the stuffed squash to the oven for about 15-20 minutes or until the stuffing is slightly browned and crispy.

Serve inside the squash half. Enjoy!

WLS Portion -- the squash "half" pictured here is actually not exactly a half... it's more like 1/3 of a small-ish squash (because I can't cut straight). And the stuffing mixture inside equaled about 2/3 cup. So the portion you see here is a total of approximately 1 cup of food. It was just the right size for my 3-year old pouch.

Packaged Meals -- For the remaining 3 squash halves and the rest of the stuffing mixture, I packaged the servings into bowls. I scooped out the squash and placed a portion into the bottom of a Tupperware bowl and spooned stuffing mixture on to the top of the squash. I'll then heat this portion in the microwave for meals this week. My remaining 3 squash halves made 5 portions and I still had stuffing mix leftover.