Simply-Healthy-Spaghetti

The other day I was driving home from the park with the kids, and as I was approaching our house, one of our neighbors had a sign up advertising free squash with large bucket filled with a variety of large squashes. Squash grows abundantly out here, so why not give away what you can't eat yourself. SO I slammed on my breaks, pulled over and grabbed two of these bad boys. 

I FELT LIKE I WON THE LOTTO! One of my all time favorite meals, that can easily be kept vegan, fresh from a local garden, for free... c'mon does it get better than that?? For those of you who might be unfamiliar with this type of squash, it is called spaghetti squash. Why is it called spaghetti squash? Well, because, once cooked it makes a very convincing (and very delicious) spaghetti replacement. 

I don't think I mentioned how simple of a meal spaghetti squash is, it's pretty hard to mess up. The hardest part comes first. So for starters you'll need the biggest baddest knife you have, and you'll need gun power as well, perhaps warm up with a few push ups ;) Take that beastly knife and your beastly biceps and carefully cut the spaghetti squash in half lengthwise (as pictured above). Once you finish that struggle the rest is a breeze. Scoop out seeds with spoon. Rub the inner flesh down with just a little olive oil (cooking spray works fine too), and place on an aluminum foil lined cookie sheet exterior skin up. 

Then proceed to place it in a 400 degree preheated oven. Set timer for 45 minutes. While the squash is in the oven start making your favorite spaghetti sauce. Since I was cooking 2 spaghetti squashes and feeding 6, I used the following ingredients to make my home run veggie sauce (if you're only feeding 4, usually 1 large squash will be enough and you might want to half my sauce recipe).

1 24oz can of chunky vegetable pasta sauce

1 15oz can of plain all natural tomato sauce

1 small onion-chopped

1 zucchini or yellow squash-chopped

1 bell pepper-chopped

1 tomato-chopped

1-2 tbsp of garlic-minced

1 tbsp of olive oil

dried basil, oregano, parsley, salt & pepper to taste.

Directions: Chop veggies of choice (mine as listed above but feel free to add carrots or make exchanges to suit your preferences), and toss them along with your oil and garlic into a pot and saute together over medium heat until onions are translucent. Add your cans of tomato & pasta sauce along with your dried seasonings, salt, and pepper. Let cook another 5-10 minutes over medium heat, stirring often, then allow it to simmer on low and flavors to blend until your squash is ready. Don't forget to check on your sauce and stir it occasionally while it simmers. Once your squash is ready take it out of the oven, flip them over. Take a fork and scoop out the insides onto plate. It will be stringy and look a little something like this:

Top with your sauce, and this is what you'll get!

So so good...and you can eat it without feeling in the least bit guilty but still satisfied, seeing as one cup of spaghetti squash is only about 42 calories but is rich in dietary fiber and complex carbs. They are super loaded with all the necessary vitamins and minerals. It's nutritional values are very comparable to that of summer squash so you can find out specifics on the benefits of squash here in one of previous blog posts.

Feel free to try diffrent sauces as well, pesto and grilled vegetables would be a delightful spaghetti squash topping as well!

One more bonus: KIDS LOVE IT TOO...easiest way to hide veggies is in spaghetti sauce! And when you trick them into thinking they're eating really cool noodles, but in reality it's even MORE veggies...it's hard to go wrong!