Stuffed Acorn Squash

I feel like I haven't had time to experiment with cooking much lately, but I made a new version of a recipe my sister gave me tonight and it turned out GREAT! In her original recipe, which I have made and liked, essentially you make chili with sausage in it and put it in the middle of baked acorn squash. The reason I wanted to experiment with the recipe is that I felt like the flavor of the sausage was lost with the chili spices and tomato sauce, which is just a shame! If you're going to stuff your acorn squash with chili, you may as well use ground beef or ground turkey in it instead of sausage.

But I knew sausage and acorn squash would go great together, so I started thinking about other things to use in the stuffing. Here's what I came up with:

Stuffed Acorn Squash a la Emily

Ingredients:
3 medium acorn squash
12 oz. breakfast sausage
2 granny smith apples (diced)
1 14.5 oz. can great northern beans
2 garlic cloves, pressed
salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:
Cut 3 medium acorn squash in half. Scrape out the seeds with a metal spoon. Rinse the insides with water and place face down on a baking sheet. I used one with a Silpat on it for easy clean up later; if you don't have a Silpat you might want to grease the cookie sheet. Bake the squash at 400 F for 40 minutes or so.

In the meantime, brown 12 ounces of breakfast sausage, breaking it up into small pieces while cooking. When it is cooked through, add 2 granny smith apples (diced) and 1 can (14.5 oz.) of great northern beans, with a little water (maybe 2 tablespoons?) to keep it from scorching. Also add 2 pressed garlic cloves and salt and pepper to taste. Cook this mixture for about 5 minutes, until the apples are soft.

Take the acorn squash out of the oven and, using a fork or a spatula, flip each half over. Spoon the sausage mixture into the acorn squash and pop them back in the oven for a few minutes while you get the table set (allowing them to heat through).

Makes 6 adult-sized servings, or 12 for kids (just cut each half into half again!).