In weekly installments, otherwise known as TwoFaced Tuesday, Melissa, blogger at CupcakesOMG, and I will choose a shared ingredient. Then, using our own culinary talents, we’ll make whatever delicious paleo dish we can think of. TwoFaced will be a dual blogging adventure. If you start here, you will finish there and vice versa.

Yesterday, after a fun lunch with friends, I went into a store called The Paper Source. It’s what I imagine the third floor of heaven to be like. (My heaven has different floors. One of which, happens to be, a stationery floor, wherein I have an unlimited supply of journals, stamps, pretty paper and beautiful pens that never run dry. The second floor includes several levels of chocolate swimming pools and the seventh floor, well, of course, is designed exactly like Central Perk and is where I will hang out with the cast of Friends).

So, in this heavenly store, I decided to invest in three beautiful sheets of large fabric-like paper for $5 a piece. One of my goals this year, is to put more time and effort into my food photography. Whether that means forcing myself to finish a recipe while the sun is still out, or in this case, using beautiful backdrops, some arranged lighting, and of course, my assistant.

Here is one of my favorites from last night’s shoot. I’m so happy I decided to go with a solid black sheet.

I’m equally excited Melissa and I decided on cauliflower for this week’s secret ingredient. While it is absolutely not the center of this recipe, it was definitely the inspiration.

Choosing cauliflower and having no clue what to do with it, forced me to think of something I hadn’t done before. James had bought this acorn squash on sale last week. We had sweet potatoes in the fruit basket, and we always have a million onions, lots of spices and different oils on hand.

All I had to do was pick up the cauliflower and this recipe was done in about 40 minutes.

I always stay on the sweet side when I bake sweet potatoes and squash; sticking to coconut oil, cinnamon and sometimes honey. However, with the added onion, garlic and cauliflower, I was drawn to the spicier spices, like curry and cumin.

I’ll admit, it was an experiment to mix these two families of spices, not knowing if the result would be delicious or inedible.

I guess it was just a good day for decisions. Because, this recipe turned out better than expected. The toasted walnuts added a lot of flavor, so I would definitely recommend using them.

Sweet & Spicy Cauliflower Stuffed Acorn Squash

1 acorn squash, sliced in half
1 cup cauliflower, rinsed & chopped
1 sweet potato, peeled & cubed
1/4 cup of walnuts, toasted
1 small yellow onion, chopped
2 tbs coconut oil
3 tbs olive oil
1 tbs water
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp curry
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 400F.

In a deep baking dish, place both halves of the acorn squash, face down. Add 1 tbs of water. Bake for 25 minutes. Flip squash over, drizzle coconut oil and 1 tsp of cinnamon on top. Bake for 10 more minutes or until fork-tender.

While acorn squash is cooking, place a wok, or large skillet over medium high heat.

Add half of the olive oil and saute chopped onions until translucent (about 3 minutes).

Add chopped sweet potato, saute for 6-7 minutes.

Add cauliflower, cinnamon, curry, cumin, salt and the rest of the olive oil.

Saute everything for 5 more minutes.

Toast walnuts for 5 minutes at 350F.

Remove wok from heat, place walnuts in with the vegetables.

Spoon walnut vegetable mixture onto each acorn squash half.

Enjoy with a fork!

Now, head on over to CupcakesOMG! and see what Melissa did with her cauliflower!