Decluttering by Cooking and other stories

If you wander down to the girls school you would notice a small shop which opened a couple of years ago.  When they were smaller it, and it's larger brother were simply know as the 'orange shop', we shall now refer to it as Sainsburys.  One of the better things that Sainsburys produce is a store magazine which costs £1.60, as you can expect it does contain a lot of advertising for products they sell and a few uninspired articles what it does well is an excellent selection of recipes which are themed per magazine.  Normally I buy them, drool a little and then relegate them to the pile of clutter in the house without doing anything constructive, they gradually then migrate through the house and eventually create a nest in the recycling bin.

This time I was inspired and partially guilted by the presence in my house of two butternut squash from the veg box.  They have, I admit sat there for a while, occasionally requesting I turn them into soup or something equally repetative.  Their destiny was far greater than a mere soup!

Butternut Squash stuffed with lamb, pine nuts and dates.

2 medium butternut, halved & deseeded.
200g lamb mince
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 dates, stoned and finely chopped
2tbsp pine nuts, lightly toasted
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped (I used 1/2)
Handful of mixed herbs (whoops forgot to buy any so stuck in some dried herbes de provence)
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar to serve.

Heat oven to 200C (180C fan)
Make a criss cross pattern on the squash
Mix all the stuffing up (which is everything but the oil)
Splash around some olive oil
Whack in the oven for an hour or until the sqash is cooked, it recommends covering with foil after 20 mins to prevent to stuffing from burning. If like me you cannot find any, don't worry about it, just kkep an eye on it.

I served it with watercress and rocket salad.

Adult verdict - very tasty and filling
Child verdict - the salad is a bit nippy

I also made Bohemian Goulash which was very, very tasty.  The girls needed a little yoghurt to dilute the flavour but enjoyed it after that.  I should have cooked rice but there was no time to do so.  I would remake for batch cooking but honestly life is too short to deskin peppers even though they taste amazing and are sweet and delicious.  I bet there is a magic trick I am missing when I char them.