{"id":34242,"date":"2012-10-10T08:18:59","date_gmt":"2012-10-10T15:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=34242"},"modified":"2012-10-08T09:22:16","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T16:22:16","slug":"squash-that-urge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=34242","title":{"rendered":"Squash that Urge"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Somewhere around the end of August I started seeing the tweets and facebook comments and blog posts…”Is it PUMPKIN LATTE SEASON YET?” I think what we need is an illustration about the phenomenon by the very talented Shelby<\/a>, don’t you? I have to admit, I don’t get it. I don’t understand the hype, I don’t understand why the frenzy starts so early and why everyone is just\u00a0so obsessed about pumpkin everything!<\/em><\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong. I love pumpkin. Pumpkin pie is one of my favorites (and kind of my kryptonite). Last year I made an amazing pumpkin bread that was homey and delicious and I will most definitely be making it again this year. But those pumpkin spice coffee drinks just don’t appeal to me. I was intrigued, at first, because of all the excitement about it. I decided I want to give it a try. Not to be a downer or anything, but then I looked up the calorie count of one of those babies and it totally turned me off.\u00a0Depending on where you go and what size you get, a pumpkin spice latte runs between 250-500 calories<\/a>.\u00a0OH! So that’s<\/em> why everyone likes them! They are dessert! Dessert drinks used to be my specialty! I loved those white chocolate mochas with caramel sauce, chocolate syrup and whipped cream. I’ll admit, I’m still curious and would like to try one but I just can’t justify spending 400 calories on a drink.<\/p>\n

I found a much better option. Check out this girl’s recipe for a homemade pumpkin spice latte<\/a>. It’s less than 100 calories total. Now THAT’S something I’d give a try…but haven’t yet because it takes two hours. Someone let me know how it is. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Since it’s squash season and I love everything squash or pumpkin, I decided to give something else a try.<\/p>\n

[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:46]<\/p>\n

This recipe was a bit on the complicated side, but don’t let that stop you from trying it. Just plan ahead and expect to spend a lot of time making the elements. OR use leftovers to stuff the squash. If you have leftover rice already cooked, I would use that for the mixture. Quinoa would be a good substitute, too.<\/p>\n

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I used Black Rice. When I went to the store to get the last few ingredients I needed, I didn’t see wild rice in my store but the black rice was on sale. I’ve never had it before so I thought I’d give it a try. It was kind of strange watching it cook because it turned the water purple and then black. I was excited to try something new.<\/p>\n

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I made a few minor changes, like the black rice instead of wild. I also used pineapple sage because that was the kind of sage I had in our garden. Michael also wanted to add some protein to the dish, so we cooked up some chicken breasts. I ended up having half of a boneless chicken breast because honestly, the squash was enough food for me.<\/p>\n

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I mixed everything together in a bowl. It was a big mess but it tasted GREAT. You know your recipe is a good one when you’re snacking on it while you cook and it tastes delicious.<\/p>\n

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While the final product baked in the oven, Michael cooked the chicken in a skillet with just salt and pepper. And we debated on whether I bought pecans or walnuts. I’m 99% sure I got pecans. He was skeptical. I stand by that 99%!<\/p>\n

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I had a bunch of leftovers after stuffing the squash so I saved it have for lunch later in the week. My final product was not so photogenic. You should check out the original recipe<\/a> to see something pretty. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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While it wasn’t pretty looking, it was delicious tasting. I absolutely loved it. Michael liked it a lot. He said it could have used a little more salt and I agreed. I loved the nutty flavor of the pecans and the black rice with the sweetness of the squash. The celery and onions had a nice crunch to them and all of the flavors went really well together. I think next time I’ll chop up the chicken breast into small pieces and just mix it into the squash.<\/p>\n

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I was glad that I hadn’t ground up the pecans and instead had roughly chopped them but kept them kind of large before I mixed it into the rice. It was delightful getting a crunchy piece of nut in a bite of squash and rice. Definitely give this recipe a try! I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to making it again.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Are you a pumpkin latte fan? Have you ever made stuffed squash?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somewhere around the end of August I started seeing the tweets and facebook comments and blog posts…”Is it PUMPKIN LATTE SEASON YET?” I think what we need is an illustration about the phenomenon by the very talented Shelby, don’t you? I have to admit, I don’t get it. I don’t understand the hype, I don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[55,315,104,107,194,212,288,2932],"tags":[8770,6474,6473,934,1582,5373,6452,5228,2936],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34242"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34242"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34424,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34242\/revisions\/34424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}