Ground Beef & Apple Filled Acorn Squash Halves

Ground Beef & Apple Filled Acorn Squash Halves

  • Prep Time: 45 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hrs 15 mins
  • Servings: 4

    • About This Recipe

    “Great Fall comfort food. The prep time is so long mainly because I have included the baking of the squash while you are preparing the other ingredients.The cooking time is the final baking time.Enjoy!”

    Ingredients

  • 2mediumacorn squash
  • 1lblean ground beef
  • 1 1/2 teaspoonssalt
  • 1/2 teaspooncinnamon
  • 2cupsapples, pared and chopped
  • 1/4 cupraisins
  • salt
  • 4tablespoonsbrown sugar, packed
  • 2tablespoons margarine or 2tablespoonsbutter, melted

    • Directions

  • Heat the oven to 400°F.
  • Cut each of the squash in half and remove the seeds and fibers.
  • Place the squash, cut sides down, in an ungreased baking pan.
  • Then add water to the depth of 1/4-inch and bake, uncovered, until the squash is tender, about 30 to 40 minutes.
  • While the squash is baking, cook and stir the meat in a large skillet until it is brown.
  • Drain off the excess fat.
  • Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the 1 1/2 ts of salt as well as the cinnamon, the coarsely chopped tart apples and the raisins.
  • When the squash is cooked, turn them so that the cut side is up and remove them to a platter.
  • Drain off any remaining liquid in the pan and dry.
  • Scoop out the pulp from the acorn squash, making a shell that is 1/4-inch thick all the way around.
  • Season the shells with salt to taste.
  • Mash the pulp and mix in the meat mixture.
  • Return to the shells, piling them full and sprinkle with 1 tb of brown sugar on each.
  • Drizzle with the melted butter.
  • Bake uncovered until the apple is tender, about 20 to 30 minutes.
  • Serve hot.
  • NOTE: You can substitute a combination of 1/2 lb lean ground beef and 1/2 lb of bulk pork sausage for the 1 lb of lean ground beef.

    • Reviews

  • “This is similar to a recipe I use often.I add a little brown sugar and omit that cinnamon.”

  • “We found this to be a delicious fall meal. It has such a gourmet feal to it, without being difficult to whip up. I used craisins and walnuts. We found the taste to be perfect, not too sweat as others have commented.”

  • “Mixed reactions at our house–my husband and I love it.You can sub veggie crumbles for the ground beef. I want to try it with turkey sausage to punch up the flavor a little. We don’t like things too sweet, so I was thinking about adding some chopped onion to the ground beef and also adding some curry powder. Or maybe using the sausage for the meat, skipping the cinnamon and adding some paremesan cheese.”

  • “Tonight is the fourth time I’m making this dish in 2 months! My husband, my friends, everyone loves it! I substituted the Raisins with chopped Pecans or Walnuts which gives the dish some crunch! Also I’ve made it with Butternut Squash as well which was fantastic.”

  • “I had this for dinner tonight – YUM!!!:)The directions were perfect, which was a good thing, considering I’d never cooked an acord squash before.I made it exactly as directed, except that I used dried currants instead of raisins (I prefer currants and don’t have raisins in the house).Oh, I did use ground buffalo instead of ground beef (we almost always use buffalo rather than beef).This is a big 5-star recipe!”

    •