Spaghetti Squash

Spaghetti is a great comfort meal but there are cheaper and easier ways of making it healthier.

Spaghetti squash can either seem unassuming, like too much work, or simply unappealing.  Well it is neither of those things.  It is actually a great and easy not to mention healthy alternative to pasta.

First get one spaghetti squash, any size you like.  I started with a small-ish to medium since it was my first and it ended up being enough for several meals for 3 people.
Preheat your oven to about 350º.
With a sharp knife carefully cut it in half, length wise or long wise.  (I don't know what happens if you cut it in half the other way but I'm sure it's nothing major.)
With a spoon scrape out the seeds and veins in the middle.  It's okay if you scrape off a bit of the meat.
On an olive oiled cookie sheet, place your cleaned halves hollow side down and bake for about 20 minutes.  Exact baking time will vary based on how big your squash is but it is done when you can pierce the skin with knife easily.

Let your squash cool for 5 -10 minutes or until you feel comfortable handling it.
Then here's the fun part:  Grab a fork and scrape it along the flesh.  Almost instantly you'll see the flesh start to thread!
Do this until you've scraped all the flesh and then do the same with the other half.  You can actually get quite a bit of squashy noodles.
Plus I have heard that you can take the empty skin of the squash and dry it in the sun.  Its supposed to get nice and hard and then you can use it as a scoop.  So bonus craft project for the kids!

Oodles of noodles

Take your squash noodles, put them in a bowl and top with your choice of pasta sauce.
For my first bowl I was so hungry I just added the tomato sauce and that was it so this type of spaghetti is really easy to make vegan and vegetarian.
However for the final product I did end up making a tomato sauce with ground chicken.  Since my mom had recently baked up some gluten-free french bread I made me some garlic bread.

Do you see a heart in the picture?

Take a look at that beauty....  (the specks are bits of flax meal.)  But slices from a regular loaf all buttered and garlic'd up taste just as good too!

I ♥ you too GF garlic french bread!

Lots of great yummy filling fiber in this dinner.
It doesn't take too much longer to cook than regular spaghetti, especially if you make the sauce while the squash is cooking and cooling.
Also since the "noodles" are vegetables you can splurge on eating the garlic bread and feel great instead of that stuffy "carb overload" feeling from eating too much bread and pasta.