Step 1

Preheat your oven to 350° Fahrenheit/180° Celsius.

Step 2

Rinse your patty pan squash to get rid of any impurities and mud.

Step 3

Cut the top of your squash off so that you have a "hat" to cover your stuffed squash later.

Step 4

Cut with a knife into your squash center to cut out all the center flesh. Hollow out further with a spoon if necessary. Separate flesh from seeds, keep seeds to roast in another recipe or to plant. Cut the center flesh small and keep aside.

Step 5

Place the squash with cut off top on a baking sheet and tray. Sprinkle olive oil all over the hollow patty pan squash and on the hat and season with salt and black pepper.

Step 6

Roast the squash at 350° Fahrenheit/180° Celsius until it's cooked almost through. This can take somewhere between 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of your squash (*see Notes).

Step 7

In the meanwhile prepare the stuffing by combining all the stuffing ingredients together in a bowl. That includes the ground meat, the chopped onion, chopped garlic, olive oil, thyme, oregano, black pepper, salt, and the previously small cut patty pan center flesh pieces. Keep aside.

Step 8

Once your hollowed out patty pan is done roasting, place into a baking dish and place all the meat stuffing mixture into the vegetables. Close with the lid.

Step 9

For the sauce, arrange all the sauce ingredients around the squash in the baking dish, including the whole canned tomato, onion, salt, black pepper, water and bay leaves.

Step 10

Roast the stuffed patty pan squash for about 30 minutes at 350° Fahrenheit/180° Celsius (more or less depending on the size of your squash). Check if it's done by poking into the squash. Keep in mind that the meat takes about 30 minutes to cook through in a large patty pan squash.

Step 11

Serve hot by cutting the squash into 4 potions or by serving each baby patty pan individually per person.