In the Kitchen - Spaghetti Squash was a HIT tonight!

My family LOVES pasta!  We love alfredo sauce, marinara sauce, big noodles, little noodles, cheeses, and of course the garlic bread that goes with it.  In my effort to feed them more healthy, I have tried to substitute whole wheat pastas, and spinach pastas, and other pastas in an effort to please their palate while nourishing their bodies.  Most of these substitutions have been met with a big "thumbs down" on flavor and I was beginning to think we would just subside without pasta in our house and have it only when we went out to eat.

I have mentioned that I was new at eating healthy, right?  I am over 50 years old now and it still amazes me what I DON'T know!  I was reading facebook posts a couple of weeks ago when my friend Mandee posted that she fed her family some spaghetti squash with marinara sauce and they all loved it.  Being a skeptic, I did not fully believe that even her children would accept squash with sauce on it, but it intrigued me enough to buy a spaghetti squash last week when it went on sale and do some research on how to cook it.  I had never even heard of spaghetti squash before... how did that one escape me???  (The same way that sprouted nuts has never been on my radar before, I guess!)

I got brave and set the stage to get my family to eat this spaghetti squash so I did all the prep for their spaghetti dinner today while they were not home.  I knew that if the kids knew what they were about to eat, that they would not like it before it even hit their mouths. 

First I purchased a huge spaghetti squash.  Squash are not on my list for having to be organic at this time so I got it for $.58 a pound and it was about 4 pounds.  I cut it in half the long way, which took a big knife and lots of muscle.  I did not cook it first because I wanted to save the seeds for next year's garden and to sprout and eat later!  Make sure and scrape all the guts out before cooking. 

You can either put it cut side down on a cookie sheet for about 20 - 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven or bake it uncut.  The benefit to baking it uncut includes easier cutting but if you bake it whole, make sure to poke some substantial holes into it to allow some steam to escape or you could have a squash explosion in your oven!

Amazingly, when it cooled a little I turned it over and took a fork to start to take the flesh out.  It comes out looking JUST LIKE SPAGHETTI!!  I hope I baked mine long enough because the strands of squash were still pretty firm and a bit crunchy to the bite but when I tasted a plain strand of this new spaghetti, it had no taste much at all.  It was at this point that I also invited my 2 oldest over for a spaghetti dinner tonight, knowing they had no experience ever eating spaghetti squash either.  Let the experiment begin!

I had a homemade jar of marinara sauce in the basement so I had a plate of this wonderful new dish at lunch today in preparation for tonight's meal.  A bit of Parmesan cheese made it delicious!

By the time my 11 year old came home from school and the older ones were here for supper, there was no sign of a squash.. the rind was all composted and out of sight.  I told them they were sampling a new type of pasta.... I even made up some name, mumbling something about Seminole pasta that was cooked El-dente.  I had the new pasta in a fry pan with a pinch of olive oil and a bit of garlic and cooked it a bit more with the hopes that it would soften up enough to pass their palate test.  It did not really soften, but it took on a great flavor when I did that and I decided I would always heat my new spaghetti squash pasta this way from now on.

Here is the face of my pickiest and perhaps savviest participants in the taste test tonight.  This is Journey.  We did not dine with the bunny, nor do I have plans to eat bunnies, and no bunnies were harmed in the making of this meal, just for the record!

She is 11 and I have to tell you she is about the most vegetable-averse kid I have ever had.  Second only to the complete closed mind of my 22 year old to anything good for her, they would both be worthy opponents in this battle I knew me and my squash would win.

The verdict???  Glad you asked!!  They all three liked the spaghetti squash.  My 22 year old pasta lover and veggie hater asked me where I got it because it was EXACTLY what kind of pasta she would want to buy from now on.  My 11 year old cleaned her plate but claimed there was something odd about her pasta that she could not put her finger on but said she would definitely eat it again.  My 32 year old was kind of in on it .. I told her right before supper and she swore she hated spaghetti squash when she tried it 25 years ago but would try again... and even SHE loved it!!  I did finally tell them all what they had eaten after their second helpings.  hehehehe..  finally,  a huge victory!!

I am pretty sure I will never go back to regular pasta.  This spaghetti squash can be purchased fairly reasonably, and will freeze after baking into any size packages of spaghetti I want.  The consistency is such that I don't think it would hurt a thing if it softened just a bit when re-heated so we can have pasta quickly and easily and I can grow this pasta in my suburban garden all summer long because I saved the seeds in the window sill and will plant them next year!