quinoa stuffed squash

Today I was given these beautiful crookneck squash by my dear sister-in-law's grandmother.  They were the inspiration for dinner tonight (my children were not pleased).  Get ready people, you are in for a treat.  My first attempt to write my own recipe.

Things you will need (AKA stuff I had on hand):
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1 bullion cube (I used chicken, but veggie would be good too)
3 crookneck squash (other squash would probably work fine too, though you'd need more than 3)
1 large onion
1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
1/3 cup minced fresh basil (or other herbs of your choosing)
1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast (or Parmesan if you prefer)
1 Tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 Italian vegetarian sausage links (or regular sausage or no sausage at all!)
salt to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Bring 2 cups water and bullion to a boil, add quinoa, reduce heat, cover and simmer 20 minutes (or throw it all in the rice cooker, works like a charm).

While the quinoa is cooking, slice your squash in half and scrape out all the insides.  Give the seeds and stringy stuff to the chickens, or compost it, or whatever you like to do with that stuff.  Scrape out as much of the rest of the inside of the gourd as you can, reserving it to go back in the middle.  If it's excessively wet, set it on a paper towel to absorb some of that moisture. 

Set the shells of your beautiful squash plants face up on a baking sheet and drizzle them with oil and sprinkle them with a little sea salt, or kosher salt, or whatever kind of salt you have laying around. 

In a large saute pan, cook diced onion in a little olive oil over medium high heat for about  5 minutes or until it starts to brown.  While your onion is cooking dice up that scraped out squash into bite size pieces.  Take the casing off the sausage and chop it up as well. Add the squash and the tomatoes to the pan to cook with the onions.  Turn heat down to medium and cook five minutes more.  Please note that the sausage I used was vegetarian, if you are using regular sausage, make sure it is mostly cooked through. 

When your quinoa is done cooking add it to the saute pan with the nutritional yeast (or parmesan), fresh herbs and white wine vinegar.  Stir to combine.  Season to taste with salt (and anything else you might want to throw in there.  Heat through.  Scoop mixture into your hollowed out gourd shells.  Pile em high.  Mine looked like this.

I wish I had scraped those gourds a little more.  I ended up cutting out some of the squash after I cooked it to eat.  The outside was woody and not very chewable (which didn't stop me from trying to eat it), but the inside was delicious.  Also, I can't figure out how to rotate that picture. 

OK, cover those bad boys with foil and bake them for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and give em another 10 minutes in the oven. 

Here's my finish product.

Ooooh, yeeeah.  Scrumptious.
The hubs and all the kids except Solveig liked it.  The baby screamed through the whole meal, which I took to mean he really wanted some too.