Living large...in the healthiest way!

Hello again! I've been on a roll lately- be proud!

Last weekend some good friends of ours came down to good ole' Toquerville to visit us. We hit up a health and wellness festival for kids in St. George at the town square splash pad. Our kids had a great time playing in the splash pad, horse playing in bounce houses, taking pictures with spider man, running obstacle courses, jumping hurdles, getting balloons animals, and eating free fruit Popsicles! WIN! However, I think the biggest win (aside from getting to spend time with them) is the very, VERY, large present they brought us, freshly picked from her mothers garden!

Our present is as big as Miss Ry! And if you were wondering what the heck that is...it's a monster sized Summer Squash!

As excited as I was to get this I was at a loss as to what I could make with THAT MUCH SQUASH! I've made several butternut squash and sweet potato soups lately so I wasn't feeling soup. Prior to our friends visit we had planned on making eggplant "Parmesan" for dinner one night this week...well why not substitute a monster summer squash in place of the eggplant. DONE, DONE, AND DONE! I know I'm a genius! But wait... how do Vegans eat anything 'Parmesan'? I'm not really down with eating overly processed fake soy cheeses except on a rare occasion- so I left out any kind of cheese substitute all together and used nutritional yeast for that extra umphh! I was so excited that it actually worked. I didn't miss the cheese one bit- it rocked!

Ingredients:

40 oz marinara sauce (I used white linen collection all natural marinara from Costco, yumm)

1 very large summer squash, or a couple regular summer squash, or eggplant

2 Tbsp of Olive oil

2 c plain almond or soy milk

1 c wheat flour

1 c breadcrumbs

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp Italian seasoning

2 tbsp nutritional yeast plus more for topping

pepper to taste

Directions: 

• Cook 1 package whole wheat spaghetti according to the package. Peel and half the squash...scoop out the seeds, and slice up one half of squash about an inch thick. 
• Combine bread crumbs, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and pepper into a flat bottomed bowl or Tupperware container, pour wheat flour in a separate container, pour milk into a third container.
• Put oil in pan over medium heat. Dip a slice of squash in milk, then in flour, then back in the milk, then dowse in breadcrumb mixture, and place in pan. Continue this process until all squash are breaded. Cook side 1 for about 5 minutes then flip and cook the other side for another 5 minutes, then remove from heat and set aside.
• Drain noodles and place them in a glass baking dish. Toss about half of your jar of marinara sauce in with the noodles. Arrange your breaded squash on top like so.

• Add remainder of the sauce on top of the squash and then top with additional nutritional yeast to taste as seen below. The rest of my family demanded cheese, so my servings were on the left. 

Seriously though, I did not miss the cheese AT ALL.

• Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Serve and enjoy.

My serving!MMMM!

This recipe is not difficult but the breading part takes time. It takes about an hour from start to finish to make this dish, but oh man is it worth it. Again any vegetable can be used on top. Use your favorite sauce, add your favorite seasonings to your breadcrumbs, and you've got one flavorful gourmet meal. We got up at 5am and ran this morning so the carbs from last night sure helped fuel my run! 

Check out the health benefits of consuming squash in my previous post.

That squash is literally larger than life, I served 6 people and still only used half of that squash.
Any ideas of what to do with the other half?! I'd love to hear your favorite squash recipe!

Until next time...eat clean, train mean, live lean!