Spaghetti Squash, Noodle-Replacer

Hi friends. Ok, I love noodles. I wish I could eat them every day, but that's a lot of carbs, so I don't. This is a meal I made earlier this evening, using a Spaghetti Squash as the vehicle for my home made tomato sauce. Enjoy.

First, I had to bake the squash. James poked some holes in it and we threw it on a cookie sheet (to prevent drips) and put it in the oven for about an hour and fifteen minutes on 400 heat.

Much later, I whipped up the basic version of our sauce. It gets more complicated when you add more veggies, shrimp, chicken, cheese, tofu, whatever, but we just made the basic vegetarian (vegan, really) version because it's just a Thursday, nothing to get too excited about. Here's how you make it.

Throw a couple onions chopped up about the size of a dime into a pan with either extra virgin olive or coconut (also chaste) oil. Sorry for making chastity jokes about cooking oils. I'm only human. Ok, so add some minced garlic (I add a couple teaspoons worth at least because garlic is my eternal flame) and cook until the onions start getting all see through. Now sprinkle on some sea salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper if you're into that kind of thing, and some basil/Italian seasonings of choice. Today I used a spice called "Pizza Seasoning" because the bag was leaking and I panicked. It turned out.

Then add a can of diced tomatoes, drained a bit, but you don't have to use a strainer or anything, just push the top down after you use the can opener and get rid of the stuff that drains out easily. Then, let the tomatoes simmer for about ten minutes and it should start looking like this picture up top.

After an hour and fifteen minutes, carefully remove your squash from the oven. I say carefully because they are round and heavy, thus likely to roll and potentially cause multiple safety hazards. Cut it down the middle and grab a spoon and scoop out the part that looks like pumpkin guts (stringy with seeds). Once that has been dealt with, use that same spoon and rake the squashy innards around and gasp in horror and delight as they begin to resemble spaghetti noodles. Now all that's left to do is to combine squash and sauce. Wanna see a picture of what that looks like? I'm going to assume you all said a resounding "Yes!" and show you a picture.

Usually I make a pretty plate to take a picture of for the blog and then I eat it, but James was sick of me always getting the attractive food, so this was his plate. It's not even that pretty at all, actually, but compared to my plate, it's Kelly Kapowski. If you were born in the eighties and don't know who that is, shame on you. Extra points to the nineties-born who got that, and everyone else is exempt. 

Well, that's really all I have for today. Oh, wanna see what my dogs are doing right now?

I shone a desk lamp on them to take this picture and they still didn't wake up. Unbelievable.