We were cooking fools this weekend. Our first meal included Saffron Rice, Tabbouleh (think parsley salad), Pita Chips (we had to make the pitas first since we didn't have any made up in the freezer), and Baba Ganoush (eggplant based dip).

Our second meal included homemade thousand island dressing, a corned beef roast and the rye bread for the sandwiches was store bought (we don't use enough to justify buying the flour).

Turned out excellent despite the fact that the Saffron Rice was a first time try and so was the thousand island dressing.

The funny thing is we only cooked on Sunday. Saturday we were pretty lazy and only managed to go grocery shopping.

The good news is that we will have the first meal for a couple of lunches and have the second meal for supper tonight so won't have to worry about food today. Now I just have to plan tomorrow's supper in advance so I am not tempted to eat out...

Figure I would put this out for people who consider themselves very untalented in tke kitchen. It's good, very easy and is a great take to work lunch. Don't let the list of steps intimidate you. Once you do it once, you usually don't need the recipe thereafter.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 C).

Take 1 acorn squash, cut it in half from top to bottom and remove the seeds.

Take a fork and poke the inside flesh a couple of times to allow the ingredients to seep in.

Put a pat of butter (about 1-2 tablespoons) into the bottom of each half.

Sprinkle a tablespoon of brown sugar in each half.

In a bowl mix up about a 2 cups of bread stuffing mix with enough chicken broth to get the mixture moist (~1 1/2 cups).

Stuff the acorn squash halves with the stuffing.

Wrap with aluminum foil and bake for 60 minutes or until the squash is tender.

Pull off aluminum foil and bake for 5 more minutes to crisp the stuffing a little.

(If you pull it out too early, you will be able to see on the sides that the orange part is two different colors, you want the darker orange to go all the way to the edge of the green rind.)

Even my husband who thinks squash is a dirty word will eat this. I do cheat though and use Stove Top instead of making my own stuffing.

It occurs to me that I have only really mentioned this in passing and mostly on the forums so I made a category for it and will add some of my favorite recipes here for people interested.

One of the things I am doing to save money and to eat healthier is learning to cook from scratch. I still have a few items I haven't fully replaced and the big category is dressings. In fact, the only dressing I have successfully replaced is Catalina dressing and I only use it for taco salad.

I think this weekend I will explore making yogurt based salad dressings. I have seen a couple of recipes that look delicious and it should be fun experimenting.

Basically, I need a good italian, a good thousand island, a good creamy french and a ranch type dressing so I can work on 3 of the 4. Eventually I should learn to do a substitute mayo and whipped salad dressing but that can wait until I am ready to do potato salad.

So if I do find some good ones, I will probably do it as one post on salad dressings.