Spaghetti squash…I finally tried it…..

I may be behind the curve a little bit here, but I made spaghetti squash for the first time today for lunch. I think I was put off by how to start preparing it, so I never really messed with it. I mean, it’s (usually) a big, hard, odd shaped lump that I had no idea how to deal with. Do you cut it up and boil it? Do you scrape it out first and then cook it? I dunno?? Then I saw The Kitchen show on Food network over the weekend, and they just put some holes in the dang thing and tossed in the oven – whole!! No oil. No salt. No pepper. Huh, seriously??? Well, I can certainly do that. Here’s what I started with and then how it ended up, 400 degrees for 45 minutes later, I didn’t even look at it, since I was busy working. I just threw it in my toaster oven with the timer on and literally forgot about it.

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Well, I could have cooked it a little less, but no worries. Turned our fine just a little caramelized on the bottom. I used a big knife to cut it in half. I did not realize that there are seeds in the middle of this thing, so I had to sort through and toss those out. Then I just used a fork to scrap out the fleshy part of the squash. Yep, looks like spaghetti, smells a little like yellow squash.

I pickup gourmet marinara sauces that I’d like to try when I catch them on sale, so I pulled one of those out of the pantry. I had some pecorino and mozzarella cheese along with some cream hanging around so I got that out too. I wasn’t sure what else I could add so I thought I’d just keep it basic with sauce and cheese.

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I stated with some olive oil (1 tbsp. maybe) and garlic salt (1/4 teaspoon-ish) in a medium skillet over medium heat. Tossed in a little oregano just for a little flavor. I couldn’t decide if I should start with sauce or squash, so I went sauce (about 3/4 cup or so) not really for any particular reason. I heated that up a bit then added all the squash in (about 1 1/2 cups), along with some salt, pecorino cheese and cracked black pepper. Tossed that around until it was all heated through. Served it up and put a little more pecorino on top. Looking back I probably should have cooked this down a bit more since the squash released a lot of liquid, but it was still pretty yummy. I didn’t take a lot of pictures because I really didn’t believe I would like this too much. Well, let me tell ya, I loved it! I didn’t even add the mozzarella cheese or the cream. Some grilled shrimp would have been great on here, but I was in a hurry since it was just lunch. It was filing too – I only ate 1/2 of this bowl and I was good for the afternoon. I would be totally satisfied swapping this out for pasta with red sauce, alfredo sauce, or even just olive oil and some parmesan. Maybe I CAN live without wheat….just 80% of the time though. A girl’s gotta live it up too, even if it’s only 20% of the time. Enjoy!

Note: Spaghetti squash (plain) nutritional information from Wikipedia – 1 cup averages 42 calories, and contains many nutrients including folic acid, potassium, vitamin A and beta carotene.