I Refuse to Give Up Brunch

I am completely used to not eating typical breakfast foods.  It has been a year and a half since I've had a typical American breakfast.  No grains (pastries, muffins, miss those pancakes!), no eggs (bummer, so good for you!), no coffee (I love it, it doesn't love me), no yogurt (although I'd do raw yogurt for a snack).  My typical breakfast is meat and veggies.  I try to be creative with what I have, but it can get a little old until I come up with something new (like this amazing stuffing!  pork, lots of veggies, fat, perfect!).  My husband and I have always loved breakfast, especially Sunday breakfast.  The day after our wedding we had a blast cooking pancakes in our apartment.  They were fabulous and had a couple incarnations over the years as our health journey transpired.  They started as the perfect IHOP-worthy white flour pancakes, then became whole wheat as we figured out how to work with whole wheat flour, and eventually became garbanzo flour pancakes.  Now that I can't have garbanzo beans we've had to give them up (they were the perfect grab-and-go snack), but we are NOT going to give up our Sunday brunch.  When Mark is home on Sundays we love going to early Mass and coming back to a fun family brunch.  Lately I've struggled with what to do for brunch.  Being together as a family is the most important part, but having some treat to look forward to is a big part of the excitement.  We've tried a few things.  Plantain pancakes were pretty good, coconut flour pancakes were better, but I am trying to limit the amount of coconut I eat due to the high FODMAP level.  I get really exciting when I can add more vegetables into my meals so here is what we tried today:

Acorn Squash with Coconut Cream

1 Acorn Squash
1 Can Coconut Milk
1 T Maple Syrup (I used Grade A, but prefer Grade B)
Cinnamon
Salt
Coconut Oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cut acorn squash in half, de-seed, and lay each side open side down on glass baking dish pre-coated generously with coconut oil.

3. Place in oven to cook for 40 minutes.

4. Open can of coconut milk, scrape cream off top (most sites say to make sure the can has been refrigerated over night, but in my experience the cream and water are almost always separated from the get-go.  Mine actually mixed together when I stuck it in the fridge) leaving the coconut water in the can.  A little water in your cream or a little cream left in your water isn't a big deal.  Place in mixer with maple syrup and beat on high until whipped.  Refrigerate.

This is what our coconut cream looked like when done with whipping.

5. Once the acorn squash has cooked for 40 minutes, heat oven to low broil and flip squash so the open side is up.  Check squash after 5 minutes, rotate if necessary.

This is what our squash looked like right out of the oven with a dollop of coconut oil.

6. Pull squash out of oven, place a large spoonful of coconut oil in each opening.  With a fork, poke holes in squash to let the coconut oil drain down into the flesh.

7. Let squash cool to desired temperature and sprinkle with cinnamon and salt to taste.

8. If desired, put a dollop of whipped coconut cream in center of each squash.  If the squash is still hot the coconut cream will melt (which does taste yummy) so, if you would like it to stay more "whipped" let the squash cook to room temperature.

9. Cherish!!!

We thoroughly enjoyed these.  We tried them with and without the coconut cream and both ways were delicious.  They were also super filling; we were SO STUFFED just halfway through the squash.  I made another squash recipe today that I need to tweak.  Maybe I'll have to make "Squash Sunday" a thing!  What is your favorite squash recipe?