Pork and Shrimp Stuffed Acorn Squash

[Kevinpa]

I was in the mood for something different for dinner one night and had some ground pork I needed to use so I went in search of a recipe. Since I was looking for a tested recipe I did a search at the food network for ground pork in a recipe. To my suprise 234 results came up but right on the front page was a recipe by my hero Alton Brown for Stuffed Squash. [COLOR=Red]Now although accorn squash is rather high carb[/COLOR], the stuffing was rather low so I decided that this was a good night to stretch my maintenance muscles and try a little higher carb dish that was mainly from veggies. It would also give me a chance to check my blood sugar to see exactly how well it is reacting to these kinds of carbs.

This is the basic recipe:
Alton Brown's Stuffed Squash
but I did make the following subs and additions:
For the rice I used TVP(textured vegetable protein) hydrated with beef stock.
I added about 1/2 lb of salad shrimp to the pork.
And when I was stuffing the squash I added several thin layers of asigo and fontana cheese.

In a word.....Yum!

Following is what it looked like before and after I baked it.

Thanks Alton!!

BTW, the carbs had very little effect on my blood sugar.

[tim964]

Looks great Kevin. I've got acron squash growing in the garden - by the time it's ready, maybe I'll be ready to eat it.

I've got some TVP in my freezer (for long term storage) and have often thought of using it in recipes as a rice substitute. What did you think of the texture and taste of the TVP?

Tim

[Kevinpa]

I have found when I hydrate it with beef or chicken stock it take on that flavor and it quite good. It reminds me quite a bit like Couscous in texture in this recipe.

[tim964]

I'll have to give it a try. Thanks!

[replay]

What do you think about using chopped/shreaded cauliflower for the rice instead of tvp?

[Kevinpa]

I thought about using that but had been looking for places to use TVP and this gave me a good excuse. If it were me though, I'd give the cauliflower a quick nuke before baking it or it might be too aldente.

[replay]

I bet if I roasted the "cauli-rice" a bit before adding to the stuffing mixture it would have a nice flavor too. I will have to try this recipe soon. Thanks!

[replay]

I have made this twice and it was delish each time. It tastes better to me with some red pepper flakes added.

I made this dish using fresh cauliflower chopped into small, rice-like bits. I also added more shrimp, chopped into smaller pieces. If you are going more for presentation, scoop out more of the squash which will create a larger cavity for the stuffing. The extra squash that is scooped out could be cut into smaller pieces and cooked with some of the leftover stuffing. I used a ton of chopped veggies in this dish and I did not find that the flavor was lost at all.

I could see using a spice mix like chinese five spice powder and making just the stuffling into something like pork fried rice.

Depending on your carb limits, the stuffing would make a nice appetiser inside some phylo dough.

Thanks for the idea, Kevin.

[christyjo]

Kevin, when you said you hydrated your TVP with stock, how did you do that? If I were going to sub it for rice in a casserole? The dish uses cream of whatever soup and cheese (I thank you for noting the cream of chicken and mushroom soup in another post) and cooked rice. Thanks as always for your expert suggestions!

christyjo

[Kevinpa]

Originally Posted by christyjo

Kevin, when you said you hydrated your TVP with stock, how did you do that? If I were going to sub it for rice in a casserole? The dish uses cream of whatever soup and cheese (I thank you for noting the cream of chicken and mushroom soup in another post) and cooked rice. Thanks as always for your expert suggestions!

christyjo

christyjo, TVP is hard and crunchy so if your recipe calls for cooked rice you would want your TVP to be soft like the rice. What I normally do is heat some chicken of beef stock and put the TVP in it until it soften which only takes a minute or 2. then pour off the excess broth and use like rice. Hydrating the TVP in the broth also allows it to take on some of the flavor of it also. If you don't want the flavor use water with a little salt.

HTH

[drjlocarb]

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