Roasted Maple Carnival Squash

So this week the Buck family heads over to the Anderson household for the traditional Sunday dinner. We have a lot to celebrate as Sarah took her last culinary exam yesterday and (assuming she passed, which we all hope she did), she will become an official chef in 2 weeks!

In share box number 4, we received some ground lamb, so I thought I’d try to make a simple meat loaf with it. My ground lamb almost always ends up in Moussaka, but this year I blew through my eggplant reserves a little earlier than expected.  I decided I will try something new.

With my traditional meat loaf, I usually make a thin glaze of brown sugar, ketchup and mustard. I’m not sure how that will work on tonight’s lamb, but I’ll let you know how it goes!

I have one last and lonely roll of rosemary herb butter in the freezer, which I will be using some of to flavor those golden fingerling potatoes. (We will definitely spend a day talking about herb butter when the season rolls back around!)  

The remainder of my carnival squash will roast nicely with some Ben’s maple syrup and Amish roll butter.  I’ll wash those and leave them unpeeled, cut them into 2 inch chunks, and slice them diagonally on the bias.  

As our apples are long gone (much to the dismay of my 4 year old) we’ll try some quick blueberry ice cream for dessert.

For the lamb loaf, I’ll use 1 pound ground lamb, 1/4 cup finely chopped onion, 1 finely chopped green pepper (frozen from the 2014 Summer CSA), 1 egg, 1 tsp baking powder, a dash of kale powder (just because I sneak it in most everything)
and 1/2 cup ketchup.  Bread crumbs are optional, I’ll leave these out due to Sarah’s gluten sensitivity. 

I’ll make a glaze of 2 tsp each of ketchup, mustard, and brown sugar.  After shaping the loaf on a sprayed broiler pan, I’ll spread the glaze on the top and sides of the loaf and pop it in the oven at 350…  Time to get cooking!

So how did it all turn out?  

The potatoes were great.  Gone in 60 seconds.

The squash was very yummy, though next time I’d cut it into C-Shapes versus bite-sized chunks, making it easier to remove the skin.  

My loaf was done at 350 degrees in about 45 minutes.  Though it was ok as-is, and we ate it all, I feel like there was room for improvement. Perhaps some finely chopped fresh mint would have been good mixed in, or maybe some of the rosemary. I even toyed with the idea of replacing the brown sugar with a bit of mint simple syrup, but didn’t go there.  If anyone out there has other ideas, I’d love to hear them!