Sunday: Barley Pilaf Stuffed Acorn Squash 
Monday: Slow Cooker Many-Bean Soup
Tuesday: Leftovers: Barley Stuffed Squash
Wednesday:   Leftovers: Soup
Thursday: Salmon with Roasted Rapini & Tomatoes
Friday: Suz out of town
Saturday: Suz out of town

I’m heading out of town again at the end of this week, but planning on getting some good fall home-cooked meals in before I take off on Thursday night. Starting with a delicious recipe I found last year, Barley Pilaf Stuffed Acorn Squash. We add a little bit of sweet Italian sausage to the filling to make it even more hearty and will serve it alongside a kale salad with a simple lemon-mustard vinaigrette.

The slow-cooker bean soup I made last weekend (had lots of leftover partially soaked beans from the chili I made!) is actually from my cookbook, “Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever” and a bit different from the one I’ve linked to above but they’re pretty similar. My soup turned out absolutely delicious which is great since I now have lots of it in my freezer.  The main differences between my recipe and the one I linked to above are: I  added canned diced tomatoes, thyme was my only seasoning besides salt & pepper and I put a whole ham hock in the soup and then shred it up and added it back in after cooking. Other than that, very similar. I also used different beans than the ones called for in both recipes based on what I had on hand, so feel free to mix up the choice of beans as well.