Fresh Flavors of Fall

Our new apartment is absolutely amazing (have I mentioned I have a pantry, dish washer, 5 burner stove, convection oven, touch screen microwave, and french door fridge?  Yeah… AMAZING!  I still can’t believe we got this place!) however, the one thing really missing in the neighborhood is a grocery store.  I spent the first 2.5 of 3 years of my last apartment in the same predicament.  FreshDirect became a very good friend.  I don’t find it more expensive than grocery stores on most things, and on some things I’m pretty sure I actually save money.  Delivery is only about $6 and I usually find a deal on a DeliveryPass anyway so it’s around $50 for the year.  It sucks that we can’t run out for a dozen eggs or a slab of butter when I realize we’ve run out, but I’m glad to have the FreshDirect solution for most things.

This past order they had acorn squash on sale.  I usually would just roast it and throw on some butter and brown sugar,  however, with my super-duper new kitchen I wanted to do something a bit more special.  FreshDirect had a recipe suggestion of acorn squash with fresh cranberries and baked apples.  Done.  I went to the handy shopping list and got all the ingredients I needed.  My only regret is that I just got one squash and not more! (Oh and if anyone has any great ideas for what to do with the remaining huge bag of fresh cranberries other than making sauce, I’m all ears!)

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RECIPE
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(Since I only had one squash, I cut most of the recipe in about 1/4)

Ingredients:

• ·      4 small acorn squash
• ·      2 medium apples, unpeeled, chopped
• ·      1/2 cup fresh cranberries
• ·      1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• ·      2 tablespoons sliced almonds
• ·      1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
• ·      1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Cut squash lengthwise into halves and discard seed. Arrange squash cut side down in a baking dish and add 1/2-inch water. Bake for 40 minutes.
3. Combine apples, cranberries, brown sugar, almonds, orange juice, and margarine in a bowl and mix well. Turn squash cut side up and spoon apple mixture into squash cavities. Bake for 30 minutes.

Tags: acorn squash, baked apples, fresh cranberries, fresh direct