Corn Bread Stuffed Acorn Squash

    I always do a little happy dance inside when I am able to take a food that Steven is not a huge fan of and make it into something he could take seconds of. One of those foods happens to be acorn squash. I personally love it all coated with coconut oil and maple syrup or honey, but he one the other hand is content to eat it once every blue moon.
    Well it's squash season once again and I had a few acorn squash sitting in the back of my fridge waiting to be consumed. Finally, today I had a recipe come together in my head which included those delectable sweet fleshed squash. Here is what happened:

Corn Bread Stuffed Acorn Squash

Corn Bread Ingredients

1 Cup cornmeal

1 Cup flour

1 Tablespoon Baking Powder

1/2 Cup Raw Sugar

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 Cup Soy Milk

2 Tablespoons ground flax mixed with 6 tablespoons water (egg replacement)

1/2 Cup Earth Balance Butter

Directions

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and store in the fridge

Squash Ingredients

2 Acorn Squash

2 Tablespoon Coconut Oil

2 Tablespoons Maple Syrup

Directions

1) Cut the acorn squash in half and scrape out the seeds  2) Fill a crock pot with about 1 inch of water 3) Put the acorn squash in the crock pot 4) Divide the Coconut oil and maple syrup evenly and place in each acorn squash 5) Cook on low for five hours or high for 2 hours or until the squash is soft 6) Fill squash halves with corn bread batter. 7) Cook at 400 degree for 15 minutes or until cornbread is cooked through. 

Optional Toppings

Toasted walnuts

Maple Syrup

Super yum!

Animal Frenzy

    Finally, a moment to breathe! I have been up to my ears in work these past few weeks, so leisurely activities have not played a role in my life lately. At the end of August Steven and I started some online classes for Child Evangelism Fellowship® (CEF) and that paired with actual ministry, meetings, and retreats has kept us pretty busy. However, I do love keeping busy, so I can't complain ;).
 
 On a different note, I am fairly convinced that nature is out to get me. Here is my proof:

1) One activity that I have managed to squeeze to my daily routine is running. I run a mile and a half every morning and occasionally lift some weights. So this morning I rolled out of bed, put on my sneakers and started running down through the neighbors orchard. When I got close to the barn I heard the cows going crazy, it was evident that were upset about something, but I figured eh, doesn't bother me any, so I kept running. Then I heard a rustling noise in the cornfield right beside me and I looked to my right and not five feet from me was a black bear! Ok, so I've always heard you don't run away from a black bear, so I wasn't going to do that. However, no one ever said you couldn't slowly back away from one, so I did. Thankfully he was content to munch on his corn instead of my head, but I'd still rather not have that happen again.

2) When we first moved to the area I was running back the same path and I heard loud, heavy, running footsteps behind me. I turned around and I was being chased by an angry mother cow. Apparently her and her calf had managed to get out out of the barn and I didn't see them and somewhere along the line she thought I got too close.

3) Reason number two happened two more time....

4) Also, while running I encountered some dogs running around in the field, thankfully they were content to just stare me down and not eat my legs.

5) While biking I had a large group of dogs run after me for a good quarter of a mile. It was not a fun time.

6) While I was still living in Chicago I had this tiny little dog who was somehow always outside (not in a fence or on leash) and it would come and bite my heels. Again, not a fun time.

Or maybe I'm like Doctor Dolittle and have a lot of animal fans...

At any rate, if you wouldn't mind sending a message to all you pets for me, tell them to tone down excitement a little bit and I'm not signing any autographs if they bite my heels!