Inside Michelle's Kitchen -- FALLing into healthy eating

Today I’d like to introduce you to my friend, spaghetti squash. He’s an unassuming yellow fellow, with smooth skin, just smaller than a football. He gets his name from the spaghetti-like strands of squash you can scrape from a baked squash with a fork.

Spaghetti squash is a winter squash that is coming into season, along with also butternut and acorn. Once these fall beauties hit the stores, they are plentiful and inexpensive…but what do you do with them?

I found the answer to that question right on my friend, Mr. Spaghetti Squash. The produce sticker listed a website for information and recipes—www.superior-sales.com. One visit there and I was ready to bake my new friend like a pro.

Not having the exact ingredients for any of the recipes, I went ahead and invented my own. The recipes listed sounded delicious; I’d highly recommend checking them out as well as experimenting on your own.

Mr. Spaghetti Squash with mushrooms, carrots broccoli

1 spaghetti squash

½ lb of thinly sliced carrots

½ lb broccoli crowns

½ lb sliced button mushrooms

1 clove garlic, minced

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Rinse spaghetti squash, slice in half and clean out the seeds and pulp. Place cut side down on a cooking sheet or shallow baking dish. Bake for 25 minutes or until soft (the website says to cook it whole for 45, by slicing it in half, I saved some time).

3. While squash is cooking, bring water to boil for steaming vegetables*.

4. While water is boiling and squash is cooking, heat a large skillet with 1 tbsp olive oil.

5. Sauté mushrooms and garlic in skillet.

6. Steam broccoli and carrots until just-tender.

7. Add broccoli and carrots to the skillet with the mushrooms, coating the vegetables with oil.

8. When the squash is done cooking, carefully shred the inside of the squash with a fork.

9. Place strands of squash in the skillet and toss to coat with pan juices

10. Heat for another few minutes. Season with salt and pepper and enjoy!

*I have steamer basket insert for my stock pot. If you don’t have steamer, simply bring enough water to just cover the vegetables to a boil, add veggies and cover, cook for about 5 minutes and check for tenderness. (or microwave)

Nutritional information: These are all WW Core ingredients. For WW points, the only thing to calculate would be the olive oil or other fat you chose to sauté the vegetables in, that’s it!

 

Comments

[Teale]

I bought a butternut squash at the farmer's market a couple weeks ago, and then it went to waste b/c I had no idea what the heck I was doing with it! I'll have to seek out some recipes.

[Heather P.]

This sounds yumo!

[mamacita tina]

This sounds yummy, and I've never tried spaghetti squash, would love to try it. I like introducing my family to new foods too. Thanks for sharing.

[Krissi]

I am so totally going to make that recipe. OMG it sounds YUMMY :)

http://www.mykidney.com/normalisnormal