Spaghetti Squash

Eddie has about five favorite meals. He'll eat almost anything I make, but there are about five that if he had to rotate for the remainder of his life he would be happy. One of those meals would be spaghetti. It is NOT my favorite. I am a meatless-sauce girl. Eddie thinks meatless is the most ridiculous idea ever. I don't like spaghetti noodles. Eddie prefers spaghetti or something like it to any other kind of noodle. He doesn't complain when I put sauce over rotini or penne, but he would never choose it on his own. It's also not all that healthy. Especially for those of us who really need to cut out the bread.

Tonight we tried a brand new food that several friends had suggested. Spaghetti squash. Why had I never heard of this before?!? It was fantastic!

Eddie found a spaghetti squash in the produce section {after lots of looking and even having to ask someone for help} with the butternut squash. He said it was a little bit hard to find and there was only one left. Not stocked often or just that popular?

I cut the spaghetti squash in half {longways} and scooped out the seeds. {It was hard to cut into and I worried that it wasn't ripe. It definitely has a pumpkin feel and smell!} After the seeds and "goop" were gone I rubbed olive oil on the insides. I could have salted and peppered it at this point but I forgot. I laid the halves insides down in a casserole dish and baked them at 350* for 40 minutes. When my 40-minute timer went off I started browning my ground turkey and added my sauce to simmer. As soon as that was done I pulled the squash out of the oven and flipped them over. I filled the middles with sauce, topped with parmesan cheese, and put them back in the oven on a low broil for about 10 minutes. We shared a half and had PLENTY left over for lunch tomorrow or supper another night this week.

If you're like me and had never heard of it before, it's definitely squash-y in texture but when you run your fork through the sides (pulp?) it shreds into spaghetti-sized pieces. It looks like really yellow angel hair pasta. With sauce over it I really thought it tasted like I was eating regular spaghetti, although I know plain it wouldn't fool anyone.

Eddie was pleasantly surprised by how much he liked it! He loves vegetables but I recently had a mishap with a veggie and he was on high alert and wasn't sure he'd like this.

So did my boys like it? No. Ha! James is in the middle of a stage where anything new makes him gag. He's also in the middle of a no-sauce stage. I actually made him spinach rotini and he never knew he was getting a little vegetable in him. Will wasn't a huge fan either but Eddie didn't feed him any of the sauce so I feel like he would have liked it if he'd eaten all of it.

We will definitely be having this again soon!