We Love Spaghetti...Squash

Well, it's not a lie that we love spaghetti, too. But we recently discovered the joys of spaghetti squash and have fallen back on it consistently on those nights when we want lighter, vegetarian (read: less pork-based) fare.

Really, the interwebs has exploded with spaghetti squash recipes. For instance, it tells me that it is also called squaghetti...something I refuse to do. A simple Google search (who knows what bing, or yahoo, or...remember Jeeves? will bring up) will provide you with all sorts of ideas for recipes and preparation techniques.

In our house, at least, we usually cook spaghetti squash with whatever ingredients we have lying around. It has truly become a squash of convenience for us. An example, you ask?

Example one:
A few weeks ago I came back from physical therapy only to find that there were not enough ice packs in the house to ice all my sore spots. Half an hour later, I found myself watching old re-runs of Gilmore Girls with a bag of shrimp thawing on my knee.

We cut the squash in half--no small feat in itself, because these things are hard!--and put it in the oven. Meanwhile, the shrimp were peeled, cut up into bite-sized pieces, and sauteed with onions and garlic. We seasoned all of this with cumin, coriander, and other complimentary spices... probably some ginger or curry powder. When the squash was done, we scraped the flesh out, threw it in the saute pan, and added some cayenne for heat. A couple of swishes in the pan, a sprinkling of fresh cilantro, and all was right in the world. Even my knee felt better.

Example two:
A massive amount of people came out of the woodwork (well, OK... I came out of the woodwork) for a friend's dissertation defense last weekend, including some genuinely good, wonderful folks who flew in from distant, exotic sounding places. To celebrate we decided to have a Sunday dinner (yes, it happened to be the Superbowl, no, we didn't care) which, at the last minute, included a genuinely good, wonderful, vegan friend. Not so great when the main inspiration for your meal is a cider-braised pork belly (post to come soon)!

Enter spaghetti squash! This time, with a small onion, jar of marinated artichoke hearts, a couple handfuls of capers, and garlic fried up and mixed with a pint of our homemade tomato sauce. This time, we poked holes all over the squash with a knife and put it in the oven for about an hour (you can tell it's done when you can see indentations upon pressing). MUCH easier to cut in half this time. Again, seeds removed and flesh scraped out, mixed with the sauce...and all, again, was right in our world.

Spaghetti squash: uniting vegans and pig lovers since 2010.