Ok Fd. Here's the stuffed acorn squash recipe.
Ingredients:
Serving for two as appetizer, 1 acorn squash. Main dish for two, multiply all by 2.
1 package of firm tofu
2 large carrots (good and dense)
1 medium sized daikon radish (about the size of 2 large carrots).
fresh ginger
soy sauce
toasted sesame oil
peanut oil
toasted black or white or mixed sesame seeds
4 dried shiitake mushrooms
"mirin" sweet japanese cooking wine or apple juice.
Braising the Squash:
1) Give squash a very good scrubbing under cold water. Do not peel.
2) Cut off some of the pointy ends enough so that a flat surface on which the squash. Take care not to cut off too much.
3) Hemispherically halve the squash and use a spoon to empty out the seeds and scrape off the stringy stuff. You don't have to be a fanatic but a cleaner look is more appealing.
4) In a large pot that is large enough for you lay out the squash fat open side down
pour in 2 cups of of reduced salt or salt free vegetable broth and add to it about a quarter cup of soy sauce and, either a quarter cup of "mirin" a Japanese sweet cooking wine or alternatively a quarter cup of apple juice. Bring pot to boil and then reduce to a simmer on lowest flame. Cover tightly and let simmer for 30 minutes. Check to make sure that the simmering mixture is not evaporated away, if level appears to be going very low, just add boiling water.
Making the stuffing:
1) Cut up all of the tofu into cubes. The smaller the cubes the better.
2) Peel the carrots and daikon and use grater them all up into narrow stringy lengths. Usually end up in lengths not more than a half inch. This is fine.
3) Soak the shiitake in a bowl with boiling hot water, enough water to cover
the mushrooms so that they rehydrate. Takes about 15 minutes. Do not discard the water but strain the particles out as they usually are gritty.
4) Cut up the mushrooms in very thin strips. If you like the mushrooms alot, double the quantity. If you prefer fresh, start with double the quantity and add from there.
5) In preheated a large skillet, say minimum 10" but better at 12" or larger, set flame to high, add three tablespoons of peanut oil and carefully tumble the tofu cubes into it. Using a potato masher, slowly crush the cubes up so that the tofu beings to look like ground meat in appearance but obviously not color. The tofu will release quite a bit of water. Allow the water to boil off.
6) Now add the mushrooms, mushroom water and grated carrots and daikon and stir around so that everything is well mixed. Allow to cook until carrots and daikon are softened up a little but not totally soft.
7) Now add 6 tablespoons of soy sauce, 6 tablespoons of mirin/apple juice, and about 2 tablespoons of toasted sesame oil.*
Stir well so that the coloring gets all evened out.
Set aside.
Check squash. Should be cooked through (so that you can easily pass a toothe pick through. Gently take squash and stand them up in a soup bowl fat side up. Take spoon and stuff the cavities with tofu mixture. Pile it up if you like.
Take some sesame seeds that you have toasted up in a sauce pan and sprinkle on top. Goes very well with brown rice.
*If you like ginger. Also add about 4 tablespoons of grated fresh ginger.
Hope you like it.