Spaghetti Squash
Monday, January 5, 2009
I was first introduced to spaghetti squash when I was on Weight Watchers a few years ago. When striving for low-point meals, variety can be hard to come by when you're a picky eater like I am. But spaghetti squash sounded like something I'd like, so we gave it a try.
After that, we made it pretty often. Since then, it has sort of fallen off our dinner radar a bit, and we went a long time without having it. Last week, when we were picking up the butternut squash to use for our butternut squash fries, we decided to pick up a couple spaghetti squash as well.
On New Year's Eve, we decided to make it so we could have a light meal before going to our party (and I'm just now getting around to posting it). It occurred to me that there are probably a lot of people who aren't familiar with spaghetti squash, so I figured I'd blog about it, even though it's not really a recipe.
Spaghetti squash is extremely simple to make. All you have to do is cut it in half, and scoop out the guts and seeds in the middle. Then, place each half into a baking pan, cut side down. Bake on 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour. You'll know it's done if you run a fork over the flesh and it very easily starts shredding into "spaghetti."
The consistency, however, is a bit different than actual spaghetti. It's supposed to have a little bit of a "bite" to it, so if it's a little bit on the crunchy side, it doesn't mean it's undercooked.
It's obvious how this squash got it's name.
There are many different ways to serve spaghetti squash. Our favorite way is to treat it just like spaghetti noodles, and eat it with tomato sauce and parmesan cheese.
It's actually also quite good on its own. A little parmesan cheese, maybe a little olive oil or butter/margarine... yum. I'm sure there are many other ways to eat it as well; ways that I am not even aware of!
So if you've never had it, I encourage you to give it a try. Add spaghetti squash to your healthy food menus!
Completely unrelated, but an update... OK, so that light I mentioned I was excited about getting to help improve my photos? It came today, and I'm not that impressed by it. There's nothing really wrong with it, but it's bigger and bulkier than I thought and I can't imagine actually setting it up every time I want to take a picture of a meal or something. Not convenient. I'm about 99% sure I'm going to be sending it back. Boo, back to the drawing board. I'm looking for alternatives now. Hopefully I'll be debuting much better looking nighttime photos very soon!
A couple of nights ago, Michael and I were watching an episode of 
These pancakes pack a lot of pumpkin flavor, and the amount and combination of spices was perfect. Taking the advice of some of the reviews, I added an extra egg, a tablespoon of granulated sugar, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. The pancakes were fluffy and cakey. They were actually good on their own, but I enjoyed them even more with a few drizzles of syrup. Yum.
2. In a separate, larger bowl, combine the flour, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, and spices.
3. Add pumpkin/milk mixture into the large bowl with the dry ingredients. Stir just until combined.
4. Heat a lightly oiled (I use nonstick spray) griddle or skillet over medium high heat. Pour or scoop batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup batter for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.
The original recipe says it makes 12 pancakes, but I got 18 out of it, plus a small silver-dollar-sized one for Tess. :) I used a 1/4 cup measuring cup to scoop the batter onto the skillet, so they were all consistent in size. I don't know why it made so many more than it called for, but we weren't complaining! 
I like how it it blurs the backgrounds of images. Very cool. (That's a fake pine needle sticking out of Tessa's mouth. We were taking down the Christmas tree!)
I love new "toys." You'll definitely be seeing more pics taken with this lens!
But it grew as the night progressed. As you can see, there was a 70s theme established for the evening. Some of the costumes were pretty hilarious.
My Oreo truffles and cookie cake were big hits; someone actually asked me if I did that kind of stuff for a living (I wish!).
Michael and I left to head home a little after 2:00 a.m. It was the first New Year's Eve that we've ever actually slept at home, and I gotta tell you--it was sooo nice.
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