I finally tried spaghetti squash. It's been highly touted. Something about nutrition and low-carb and healthy and blah blah blah. This crazy lady said it would be good, so naturally, I was skeptical. NOT! (I am once again in love with the awesomeness of this retort. Thanks, Borat.)
Anyhoo, spaghetti squash is a variety of squash that has flesh which looks like its namesake-noodle. Check it.
I mean, I love me some squash, but would this really be good? I kept imagining my ma's acorn squash (which she made with butter and brown sugar) with marinara sauce on top. Which brings me here…
Man, I love writing my posts at night. I make no sense at all.
Back to the squish. Yes, squish.
So. You get your hella-big, heavy squash at the market…
And you stab it a couple times with your chef's knife because you are not cutting that sucker open. (The stabbing will let the steam escape when you throw it in the oven. It's not just for anger management.) Then you put the whole monster in the oven for an hour at 400 degrees. Yep. Just throw it in there. It'll be okay.
Get your oven mitts on and take the big boy out of the oven. Now you can cut it open without a hacksaw. I used my trusty Wusthof to slice the squash in two.
Scoop out the seeds. Throw those away. Or not. You can roast them like pumpkin seeds, but that's not the goal for today, people.
Continue scooping out the insides for consumption purposes. One squash makes a whole lot of meals, so get your Tupperware ready. I roasted two squash and I've made eight adult and four toddler bowlfuls so far and still have some left.
I tried something simple and obvious for my first spaghetti squash meal and threw some garlic, marinara (jarred, for shame), parmesan, and mozzarella over the "noodles." I was still apprehensive while I was waiting for my dinner guests to arrive, so I scooped a way-too-hot forkful out of the pan to test it. DELICIOUS!
The squash doesn't taste too squashy and it has a little firmer texture than actual pasta, but it holds sauce really well and is a great vehicle (thanks, Frissy, good word) for getting some tomato-y, cheesy goodness into your mouth. Plus, it has some benefits to it. Like it's inherent vegetable-ness. And the fact that a cup of it has 42 calories. (A cup of pasta has 220 calories.)
V and Mae Cake were enthusiatic test tasters. V was slightly aware that I was trying to pull a fast one on her, but totally bought it in the end.
Try it and join the cult.
(Thanks, pretty Alyssa, for the name of this post!)
Riot and Frolic 
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