Garden Fresh One Dish Meal

Hanging out with some of my buddies we wanted to make some grub using mostly fresh ingredients from the garden. My homie suggested an old family recipe mixing ground beef into a hollowed out summer squash. This is a one dish meal that can be modified around these two base ingredients. From the garden we used onion, garlic, habanero, bell pepper, arugula, and kale mixed in with the ground beef which was browned on medium heat in a skillet. We also added a healthy amount of bread crumbs to soak up all the greasy flavorings exuded from the meat.

Since this meal can be effectively baked for an extended time in the oven, it isn't an issue if you are dealing with an over-ripe squash, which we were dealing with. To prepare the squash, just slice it lenghtwise and scoop out the majority of the innards, but leave a decent amount of the flesh covering the rind. You will need that squash flesh later in the recipe. Go ahead and slather that bad boy with olive oil and place the beef/veggie mix into the core.

Sprinkle cheese over the top of the stuffed squash and bake at 350 for at least 20 minutes. You can always cook it for longer until the squash is tender if it's over-ripe. You may just need to lower the heat down to 300 or lower and bake for an extended period. You may also want to cover it in this case to prevent the meat from drying out too much, however the bread crumbs should prevent this from happening. When the dish is done you can scoop out that flesh you didn't remove along with all the stuffed ingredients and set them aside.

Just put all the scoopings back into the squash shell and enjoy! Removing more of the squash and mixing it in with the beef will make it more moist and add a nice stringy texture to the dish. It's very filling and has an outstanding savory flavor.