Tasty Tuesday: Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

Spaghetti with meatballs.  Spaghetti with garlic and butter.  Shrimp scampi.  These all have a few things in common.  Yes, of course they all include spaghetti.  But they are also quick family staples, comfort food for some, and foods that we didn't think we would be able to enjoy since going wheat free.  

Thankfully, there is an alternative.  Until a few years ago I had never heard of spaghetti squash.  And I sure didn't know how to cook it, or how it tasted.  I have learned that I like spaghetti squash, quite a lot, actually.  My kids love spaghetti squash too, and don't miss the old, processed stuff.

Here is a my favorite way to cook spaghetti squash.  This is also an easy recipe to put together Sunday evening and pack for lunches throughout the week.

How to Cook Spaghetti Squash

• Preheat the oven to 400 °F 
• Cut the squash in half lengthwise - you  might need a pretty heavy duty knife to do this.
• Then use a spoon to scoop out the seeds in the middle.  You can toss them out, or roast them just like pumpkin seeds.  

• Arrange squash on a cookie sheet, or 13 x 9 pan, cut sides down. 
• Pour 1/2 cup water into the dish and bake until just tender, 30 to 40 minutes.  You will know it is done when a fork goes all the way through the flesh to the skin.
• Allow to cool for 5 - 10 minutes.
• Scrape a fork back and forth across the squash to remove the insides.  It should look like spaghetti!

For this post I chose to make a quick meat sauce to serve over the spaghetti.  All I did was brown some lean ground beef until it was no longer pink and drained away the grease.  Then I added about 3/4 of a jar of my favorite pasta sauce - Newman's Own Organic - and tossed it together.   Voila!



A normal serving is 1/2 of a cup of squash.  Feel free to measure it out first and then top with sauce.