Stuffed kuri squash and mushroom gravy

Inspired by the recipe that lived in the sidebar a while, Thanksgiving stuffed roast pumpkins, but unable to find sugar pumpkins for some reason, I bought a red kuri squash to stuff over Thanksgiving weekend - and then re-read the article and realized I'd unwittingly bought the squash that was the true original inspiration, and replaced by sugar pumpkins as easier to acquire!

It took me a while to actually get around to making the squash because it felt like a lot of work. And to be fair, it involved things I did over multiple days, so it would have been a lot of work all at once.

So here is a reconstruction of what I did:

I lopped the top off the squash and scraped out the seeds and strings, rubbed the interior with olive oil and sprinkled it with salt and pepper. I baked it until it could be pierced easily with a knife.

Meanwhile I cooked up French lentils in broth, and sauteed onions and carrots. Once softened I added garlic and spinach, and then the lentils with some of their liquid.

In the squash I layered (well, sort of) the lentil/vegetable mixture, finely diced granny smith apple and celery (prepared previously), and goat cheese.

Bake again until hot through and melded, and serve with heated mushroom gravy, also prepared earlier.

After getting the squash back into the oven I realized the bread I'd intended to cube and include as a sort of stuffing element was still sitting in the toaster, hard as a rock. It would have been a good inclusion because when I cut into the squash it was a bit too wet - though with the bread, I might have wanted a bit more broth included.

Making this again I would try to find smaller squash - it was a bit too big for one, but would be hard to subdivide.

The mushroom gravy came out well, though I modified it so much as I went along that I don't have a recipe for it. It was sauteed mushroom slices, oven-roasted onion, garlic, and carrots, leftover caramelized onion, bouillon, sage, rosemary, black pepper, water, cornstarch, a splash of dark beer, two dashes of maple syrup, and the tip of a spoon of cocoa powder. I blended it, so it was thickened by the blended vegetables as well as the cornstarch. I did not originally intend to include carrots, but it started out too salty and they were part of my attempt to dilute the saltiness.

I already have another kuri squash, motivated largely by the fact that the squash selection at the store is already slimming down, so some time between now and Christmas I'll probably try this again!