Foodie Friday - Stuffed Squash

This year I am growing regular yellow squash and One-Ball Squash. Like 8-ball zucchini, the One-Ball Squash grows round and should be picked while young. Both taste great, the variety of regular squash I am growing is very mild and buttery, so the one balls may be more "squashy" flavored, but still mild and tender. The regular shaped squash is more useful in things like kebabs or grilled vegetable sandwiches. The One-Ball shines as a stuffed squash. Both are great sliced and roasted or sauteed.

Like the 8-Ball Zucchini, the One-Ball squash is prolific, leading to my husband's nightly moan, "Squash again?" This squash has been cooked nightly every way known to man (and occasionally making an appearance in omelets in the morning.) My husband looks at me and says, "Did I ever tell you that I don't like squash?"

Too bad, hubby. The squash borer hasn't killed my plants yet and they are producing a lot.
In spite of careful spraying, before the summer ends, the squash borer always wins. So we must "enjoy" the squash while they are in abundance.

The adult Squash Borer - it lays the eggs that hatch into caterpillars that dig into the squash plant and kill it

So the other night I made up a recipe on the fly after work that used whole squash - stuffed. The nice thing about the One-Ball (and the 8-Ball Zucchini) is that when you stuff them, everyone gets their own individual squash. It's so cute!
I cooked organic ground beef with onions, peppers and garlic (all from the garden) and seasoned with salt and pepper.
While it was cooking I cut the tops off 3 squash and cut the bottoms only enough to level them in the greased baking dish. Then I scooped out the innards, leaving about a half inch of squash evenly all around. I didn't take photos of this because I was making this up on the fly and, not knowing how good it would end up tasting, I didn't know this was going to be posted on the blog. Sorry about that. When the beef was done cooking I stirred in an egg and some whole wheat seasoned breadcrumbs and mixed all that together, then stuffed it all into the squash. I topped the meat with slices of Monterey Jack cheese, because everything tastes better with cheese. :)
I took two cans of diced tomatoes in sauce and poured it all over the squash, sprinkled it liberally with Penzey's Italian Seasoning and baked it at 350 degrees.  Like I said, I wasn't planning on putting this on the blog so I don't really know how long I baked it. Hubby and I went outside and did some work on the yard and then came in and checked on it and it was ready. I'm thinking 45 minutes? The meat was precooked, so it was only the squash that was baking. It was fork tender when done.

Not the best photo in the world, but this is what it looked like when done. It looks almost as messy as the counter I photographed it on. But it was delicious! I ate half and I was full. The other half heated up nicely in the microwave at work the next day.
And hubby the squash hater? He ate two.