I volunteer every month for an event called Produce On Wheels With Out Waste (POWWOW), and come home with bushels of food as a thank you. The event allows foods that may not be pretty enough for the market or are leftovers to still get to people who are in need. The event allows you to purchase 60 lbs of food for $10. I love this program!

So when I got home a couple of weeks ago and I had so many dang acorn squash that I didn’t know what to do.

But my husband decided he’d bake them, and I’d come up with something to go on the side. Rooting around in our pantry, Luke came out with a package.

“Hey, why not use this up?” he suggested, handing the bag to me. “Not much in here.”

“What is it?”

“Bulgur.”

“What the heck is that? And why is it in our pantry?”

Good questions that neither of us really knew the answers to. I had honestly never heard of the stuff and didn’t know why we would have purchased it. It was even opened, and partly used up. We shrugged and followed the instructions on the package to cook it.

And this was the result of our creative excursion this week – amazingly tasty, too! We swore we’d make this again in the future.

---

RECIPE

---

Baked Squash with Spicy Bulgur Pilaf

Serves Six

SQUASH Ingredients

3 ripe acorn squash
1 tsp ghee
Salt & pepper to taste

Preparations

Cut the acorn squashes in half, and place 1 tsp of ghee in each and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Bake in an oven at 400 degrees for 1 hour.

PILAF Ingredients

2 cups quick cooking bulgur wheat
1 large yellow onion, diced
1 cup mushrooms, diced
2 jalapeños, diced
2 cups halved cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp dried basil
1 tsp white pepper
2 tsp. salt
Drizzle of olive oil
Fresh basil to garnish

Preparations

Boil water and place the onion, mushrooms, and jalapeño in the water for 5-10 minutes. Then pour in the bulgur and let stand for 20 minutes, or until all water is absorbed. Mix in the tomatoes and seasonings, and then drizzle with olive oil. Spoon into the squash like a bowl, add basil to garnish and serve hot. Enjoy!